The Mortal Instruments Trilogy

The Mortal Instruments Trilogy
City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass
by Cassandra Clare

It is rumored that George Lucas wrote the original Star Wars trilogy by taking the Ten Main Plot Devices and throwing them together in one wonderful mesh. With her urban fantasy/romance trilogy The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare has done very much the same thing.

Clary Fray, the protagonist, has an argument with her mother, goes to a club where she meets a mysterious and very attractive boy––who only she can see. Who fights demons. Vampires and werewolves feud, fairies live beneath Central Park, and warlocks throw the most…interesting parties. Besides saving this new world from evil, Clary has to choose which boy wins her heart: Jace, the mysterious demon-fighter, or her nerdy best friend, Simon.

Sounds cliched, right? Wrong! Well, right, in many respects, but many more cliches are flipped completely upside-down than played straight, with enough plot twists to satisfy the most restless of readers. The characters are well-written, genuine and likeable, and the text only occasionally dips into excessively romantic description. Equal parts romance and adventure, with action, mystery, and a bit of magical politics thrown in, these books are simply fun to read.

Unfortunately, the only way they’ll impress your English teacher is length: an average 480 pages. But each apparent tome is fast-paced and double-spaced, with fairly large print.

Besides, the covers are probably the best in modern teen lit. Just look at them.

Clare is expanding the Mortal Instruments universe, extending the original trilogy into a six-book series and writing an additional prequel trilogy, The Infernal Devices, set in the Victorian era. The first Devices book has come out, The Clockwork Angel, as has the fourth in the Instruments saga, City of Fallen Angels.

But readers wary of commitment should have no fear; the original trilogy functions entirely on its own, as does the darker Infernal Devices. All are quick and easy reads though, and as your resident Book Reviewer, I predict you won’t be satisfied with just one.