Book Review:City of Fallen Angels, by Cassie Clare

City of Fallen Angels,The Mortal Instruments series book 4, by Cassandra Clare

Book Description from amazon.com:

The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She's training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most importantly of all—she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.
But nothing comes without a price.
Someone is murdering Shadowhunters, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second, bloody war. Clary's best friend, Simon, can't help her. His mother just found out that he's a vampire and now he's homeless. Everywhere he turns, someone wants him on their side—along with the power of the curse that's wrecking his life. And they're willing to do anything to get what they want. Not to mention that he's dating two beautiful, dangerous girls—neither of whom knows about the other one.


**Warning: strong language in some parts and negative opinions!**

Recently I came across with a wonderful chapter-by-chapter sporking on City of Bones, and in the conclusion part, the author mentioned that:

"Whenever I would ask someone what the plot of Clare's Draco Trilogy was, I was simply told that "stuff happened". That was it. No one seemed to be able to pinpoint exactly what it was that happened in those three fics, and to this day, I'm still not entirely certain what the whole trilogy's about." (Link: das-sporking.livejournal.com/2…)

The comment above more or less sums up the entire Mortal Instruments series as well. Stuff happened, but don't ask 'why' and 'how' things happen the way they do in the books. And in City of Fallen Angels, the lack of reason and drive behind plots and characters took a turn for the worse.

After reading City of Glass, I feel the story has come to an arguably satisfying conclusion, but I don't mind reading City of Fallen Angels to find out what might happen after Valentine is taken down. But after finished reading the book, I found the fourth book of Mortal Instruments, starts from its title to its context as a whole, appears to be quite pointless. The title 'City of Fallen Angels' has nothing to do with the story, neither angel or fallen angel shows up in the book. It sounds like Miss Clare named her book like this simply because 'fallen angels' sounds cool.

The world-building in this book is also a problem, and God help me, it's the fourth book already and the world of Shadowhunters is still so poorly constructed! The lack of satisfying world-building in a fantasy novel is a damaging flaw. After the Mortal War, I had expected to see some restoration and reform in the Shadowhunters' society. But sadly Miss Clare clearly doesn't have much interest to write these things. What has ever happened to the new Clave with Downworlders now having their seats? Any new political or institutional change in the governmental body of Shadowhunters? Sorry, I can't recall any of these is ever mentioned. The only mention we got is a scene with a stone-faced Luke sitting with other equally stone-faced Downworlders, discussing something together. And this is far from enough.

In my opinion, the Shadowhunters being called 'Nephilim' is kind of annoying. I mean, they call themself Nephilim---offsprings of angel, but vampires, werewolves and fairies are referred to as  'Downworlders'; that is so unfair. And isn't it just sounds insulting to the Downworlders? Why no one ever realize it's a problem!?

Since the author doesn't seem to be interested in working out the social and political changes of her Shadowhunters' world, then most of the book is taken up by the Jace/Clary romance and Simon's relationship with Isabelle and Maia. Mind you--I don't mind reading about romances but a fantasy novel which focuses mostly on romances among a few characters without 'the big picture' being mentioned, is pretty boring.  

In this book, Simon also becomes a protagonist alongside Clary. Though I have nothing against Simon, I even like him to an extent......but his motivation is even weaker than Clary's. (Clary at least has the purpose of saving her mother, but Simon, what's there for him anyway?) I admit the progress of Simon adjusting into his new life as a vampire is pretty interesting, but on the other hand, Simon feels very uninvolved. From start to end, he only rants about how difficult his life had become and let things happen to him, not making things happen. It doesn't help the storytelling much.

Here I also have to wonder again why Simon has to love Clary? I have no idea why! What's so outstanding about Clary for Simon to fall in love with? I can't find any base for this love! As a result, the entire Simon/Clary one-sided love thing looks like a plot device to show how desirable Mary Sue Clary is. *sighs* Therefore I'm glad to see Simon finding some new love-interest, but dating two girls at once looks really out-of-character for him, not to mention one of the girls in question (Isabelle) had just lost a younger brother and a supposedly sensible guy like Simon should have long realized cheating on her isn't such a good idea.

In book 4, things still don't work out between Jace and Clary. Jace is now having more mood-swings than I usually would, he's all hot-and-cold toward Clary.......and good God, we are supposed to care about these? Really? Seriously? Come on, I just don't give a damn. The Jace/Clary had already become old news, and Miss Clare seems to be the only one who still does not realize it.

Plus Jace, a supposedly strong, extraordinary Shadowhunter, falls easily into the villain's trap when the latter disguises as Max Lightwood to trick him? If it were Clary or Simon falling for this trick, it might still be excusable, but there's no excuse for Jace. That, is what I would call 'too stupid to live'.

While Jace is still his old annoying cocky self, then Clary is as unlikeable a character as before. In the middle of the book, Jocelyn and Clary meets a female warlock, Catarina in the hospital. Then after they exchanged five sentences, Clary starts accusing Catarina for not showing up in the Mortal War with a particularly mean-spirited remark. Oh hell, if I were Jocelyn I'd be so damn ashamed of my daughter's behavior. Isn't it rude to judge someone whom you had just met for the first time, whom you know nothing about? I'd hoped that after going through one 'life and death' situation after another, Clary would display a tiny bit of maturity, but my hope seems to be in vain.

Alec also suddenly turns bitchy when he finds out his boyfriend Magnus Bane has a long list of ex-lovers behind him. Oh God, what can you explain when your lover is a 300-plus years old immortal? I feel bad for Alec being reduced to an immature drama queen like this.*sighs* I mean, it's understandable that Alec and Magnus have issues to work on, but Maguns' ex-lovers really isn't the right issue.

After commenting on the main characters' shortcoming, now I'll move on to the villains' section. In Valentine's place, we got a few new evils, but the problem is these new villains in the story look forced and badly constructed to me.

*plot spoiler warning*

The newcomer vampire Camille basically has the words "BAD GUY" seared on her forehead, her villainy is so obvious that it's difficult to believe a.) anyone who has the tiniest bit of brain would fall into her trap, and b.) she was able enough to lead the Manhattan's vampire clan for years, no wonder she was overthrown by Raphael, though the latter is hardly any wiser. Such kind of villains/vampires are just laughable.

And then there is Sebastian, does anyone actually feel surprised that he isn't really dead? No? In City of Fallen Angels, some new villain called Lilith (a demoness) wants to restore Sebastian to life and she does it by making monsters out of human babies, controlling Jace and her human cult followers to do her bidding. All of the above would have been cool if only it has some logical explanation to back them up. But Lilith's motive of reviving Sebastian puzzles me to no end. What does she gain by saving Sebastian anyway? If Lilith is already powerful then what she might need Sebastian for? The explanation of Lilith being Sebastian's mother is quite a weak explanation (are we supposed to believe the oldest and most cunning demoness alive would put so much effort on reviving her 'son' for hardly any strong reason?)

As to how Lilith is defeated in the end, it's so comical that I won't even bother to mention it here.


The ending of the story also gives me a headache. It turns out Jace is controlled by Lilith all along and the reason he fell into the villain's grip is quite poorly explained (there's an explanation but it is just......). Somehow Clary is also responsible for the villain being able to get a hold on Jace---but the whole mind-control business is so made-believe that I want to laugh.

*end of spoiler*

You might notice I had used a numbers of 'Oh God' in this review, it's because many of the plots are so stupid that I'm unable to suppress my disbelief. If you are to read City of Fallen Angels, be prepared for stupid and OOC characters, purposeless villains, offbeat storytelling and disjointed events that happen for no good reason.

Extra rant on Book 1 to Book 3:

1.)I had failed to mention it earlier, but really, I found the whole "Shadowhunters' angel blades have different names and their owners must scream out their names to activate the blades' power" completely dumb and unnecessary.

2.)I also can't help noticing that in City of Ashes, Jace picks up a fight with the werewolves in the pub just because he is in a bad mood so he takes his frustration out on the werewolves. Oh God, what a jerk!

3.)There's one more reason why Clary Fray pisses me off so much. Look at Harry Potter, as much as I dislike him, still J K. Rowling wrote about him studying and practicing to improve his magic, Harry earned his magical power and that, I have to give him respect. But Clary becomes awesomely powerful without any effort. It's annoying and unrealistic, not to mention Mary Sue-ish.

4.)Also, in City of Glass, when Clary sees her mom Jocelyn again, the first thing she does is to lash out on Jocelyn for keeping her from her Shadownhunter origin. Hey, what kind of attitude is THAT! ? Your mom was attacked and kidnapped, she had also been in coma for weeks and the very first thing you say to that poor woman after she woke up is to accuse her for lying!? Even before a "Oh mom, are you alright?" ? I understand Clary must confront Jocelyn for those lies in a long run, but must it be so soon!? I mean, that woman was kidnapped by her evil ex-husband, she had already had a hard time without you screaming at her face!

5.)The Shadowhunters' attitude toward 'mudances' (non magical people) and 'Downworlders' (part-demon creatures, e.g. werewolves, vampires) is irritating from start to end. Okay, I can handle Jace, Isabelle and Alec being cocky toward mudances and Downworlders at the beginning, but I did expect some improvement or change of opinion after they  hang out with mudances such as Clary and Simon. But NO, they still keep looking down at mudances and their inability to wield magic even in Book 2 and 3.

*sighs* It's racism, damn it. And hardly anyone is calling those Shadowhunters out for their discrimination -I remember Simon comments ironically that "You guys have always made me feel so welcomed", but the topic is dropped off quickly.  So, if Valentine is wrong for being a total ass toward Downworlders, then the Shadowhunters are not much better.

6.)By the way, I can't help noticing how similar this racism issue is with J K. Rowling's Harry Potter series: all the blame is pinned on Valentine/Voldemort, but the Shadowhunters/wizards' discrimination against mudances/Muggles and Downworlders/nonhuman magical creatures is hardly ever addressed. That pisses me off. And in this case, Miss Clare's fault is far worse and obvious than Miss Rowling's.