City of Heavenly Fire Review (The Mortal Instruments #6) (SPOILERS!!!)

Songs that I listened to while reading this

Y’know what was hilarious was that I was listening to Playing with Fire, reading City of Heavenly Fire, and then the smoke smell from my barbecuing neighbors started to enter my room. I just felt like everything was so perfect in that moment.

Sebastian is now going from city to city, turning Shadowhunters into soldiers for his army using the Infernal Cup, and killing many. Emma is a member of the family who’s home was attacked, and now she is a 12 year old orphan with her best friend Julian and his siblings. They have fled to Alicante, a city that is supposed to be protected against demons. However, it is soon found that even this city is not fully protected against Sebastian, and he will stop at no ends to collect his sister Clary.

Maia and Jordan are dealing with their own issues with the werewolf clan, as Sebastian is targeting everyone. Jordan happens to be in the line of fire, but Maia moves on and becomes the leader of the wolf clan.

Jace struggles to control the fire that now flows beneath his veins at all times, but Alec is trying to help him control it. The one who can truly help him control it is Clary, but his feelings for her also make it worse.

When Luke, Jocelyn, Magnus, and Rafael are taken as bait, it is up to Simon, Jace, Clary, Alec, and Isabelle to find a way to defeat Sebastian and get them.

I am going to go character by character for this very spoiler-y review.

I really had nothing to say about Jace in this book. He didn’t seem to grow, nor did he seem to shrink, as a character. To me, he seemed to just kinda be there for the story, as Clary’s boyfriend. The fire thing was interesting, but I didn’t really find it to be that important, until it was used in the sword to kill Sebastian.

I was confused with Maia in this story. In the previous book review, I stated how I thought it was dumb for her to be with Jordan when he had abused  her in the past. But she was with him anyways, they were FINE. But when he dies, then all of a sudden she’s like “I was going to break up with him anyways, it wasn’t working out. Like, I get that she finally came to her senses, but the way she went about it. She made me think everything was fine, made HIM think everything was fine, and then broke up with him for pretty much no reason? If the past was bothering her, she could have spoken up and said something. I dunno, no one is perfect, but this strange end to a seemingly happy relationship seemed really weird.

Magnus did grow a lot in this story, going from being really upset with Alec to finally realizing that they were soulmates. He spent most of this book locked up, but the backstory with his father was interesting and entertaining to read.

Sebastian was a strange villain. I sometimes saw the point of what he was doing, but more often than not I was like “Wait why does he want to destroy the entire Shadowhunter universe again? What is his motive again?” Plus, his wanting to…idk….sex Clary up or something was just weird. Like, we have established that Jace and Clary are no longer brother and sister, so it is okay for them to date. However, why is Sebastian now trying to have sex with his sister? It did not have anything to do with his plan, and it seemed to just be thrown in there for drama. So yeah, it was kinda painfully cringy to read through most of his encounters with Clary.

Isabelle spent a lot of the book deciding whether or not she wanted to love Simon, but mostly she had been deteriorating since Max’s death. This book seemed to be the last straw, and she went through a lot of emotional turmoil. However, although she wasn’t at the forefront, she wasn’t a completely forgettable character.

Clary really grew in this story. I felt that she changed from being the girl that hid behind the others and did not even know what her rune power contained, to being the girl leading the way into battle in this story. The only thing that made me upset was that at certain points in the story she would freeze up and miss the kill, like in her first encounter with Sebastian. I feel like this has been her storyline with most of her dangerous encounters, where she freezes first then she is either saved or finally acts. I wish that it would happen less, as I want her to be strong, but it kinda fits her personality.

Finally, Simon. I loved Simon in this story, I feel like he was totally like Neville Longbottom from the Deathly Hallows here. He was always saving the day, when he wasn’t pining after Isabelle. I felt so sad that he lost his memories in the end, but I hope that he eventually gains that ability again. He saved Isabelle’s life, got the group out of the territory of Magnus’ father. And those were only two of the things he did. I felt that he really saved the story for me, as I was really interested in seeing what happened to him at the end.

Now to the end. I hated the end to be honest. No, I didn’t hate the fight or Sebastian’s death. I hated that it didn’t seem to END. In the City of Glass, it was supposed to be the end of the trilogy. I didn’t find myself wanting more, I was just determined to finish the series so I read on. However now, this ending seemed incomplete. Simon is still without his memories, only a few returning, which mean that his storyline with Isabelle is not finished. Tessa or whoever was just thrown in and confused me so much, I don’t even know what she was supposed to be doing. The others weren’t so bad, but the way the story ended with Simon just did not satisfy me in the slightest.

Overall, this series has had its ups and downs. I still stick to the City of Glass being my favorite book, and this book seemed to drag for quite a bit and I didn’t like the ending much. However, the fight scenes were very energetic and truly drew me in, especially between pages 600 and 700. Certain characters such as Simon, Magnus, and Alec also saved this story for me. So I will only subtract 2 stars for everything else, giving this book a rating of 3 stars. I plan to continue with the Clockwork series, but for now, I am glad that this book is over.

Overall Rating: 3/5