City of Lost Souls – Cassandra Clare

City of Lost Souls, is a book of heartbreak, betrayal, and also quite a legion of loss. But, it IS also the 5th book of The Mortal Instruments series, so of course I had to read it, as one does. I mean, it was quite a downcast book, but I quite liked it. Which probably means that my sense of humor, literature, and books in general is kind of excitingly sad. Though there is a lot of action, humor, and descriptions, I would recommend this wonderful book to you and everyone else who you know who loves to read books!

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City of Lost Souls starts off with Jace being missing from the Institute, which, given proof from the previous 4 books, is obviously a horrible occurrence, and the entire Clave, Council, and Conclave needs to figure out where he is before he causes something horrible to happen and possibly do something fatally dangerous to the entire Shadowhunter/Downworlder areas. Along with the entire Shadowhunter Council panicking like crazy, Clary, Alec, and Isabelle are also worried about where he went, and if he went somewhere with Clary’s psychopathic brother, Sebastian (who’s real name is Jonathan Morgenstern). But anyway, it turns out that Jace actually IS with Sebastian, and there’s a tie to them, a tie that can’t be broken easily. And if any good Shadowhunters kill Sebastian, they’ll kill Jace too, and vice versa. It’s just frustrating to everyone that cares about Jace.

Something I wanted to add about this book and the previous one; I thought that City of Fallen Angels may have been quite a long, nice book, but I didn’t really like how the book took a turn at around the middle and end, the way Lilith was trying to get Jace wrapped around her clawed finger, and I kind of lost a bit of interest. Fortunately, I didn’t quit the series, thanks to a very windy, cold winter day where I was in dire need of an urban fantasy novel, but the only one I had was this book, sitting lonely and cold on a damp oak shelf, looking at me with sadness. Okay, not the ‘looking at me with sadness’ part, but still, I needed to read the book, and not fall out slowly from the lovely fandom of Shadowhunters. I really came to love all of the amazing characters and I enjoyed watching them grow up and mature more than they already were (except for Jace, obvi).

Clary is one of the really great characters who I enjoyed reading about, and though she annoyed me quite a lot in the first and second book, I came to understand her feelings and actions throughout the series. I respected her a lot for the adamance and willpower she had, especially in this book, and made sure that she didn’t fall for Jace and Sebastian’s evil plan.

Jace was quite ignoble in the book, and I felt quite sad that he wasn’t really himself when he met with Clary and Sebastian and took her back to Venice, and also that Sebastian himself was controlling the Jace that we all knew and loved. I felt sad enough that I didn’t get to see Jace enough in the past 2 books, which was bad because his sarcastic humor and dryness had never failed to amaze me and make me laugh like crazy. But it was way worse to see AlterJace controlled by Sebastian in a twisted way that made my inner soul throw up with pain and also battery tasting demon blood (don’t ask me how I know what Demon Blood tastes like, lol).

I always loved Simon, the funny vampire who’s also Clary’s best friend, and also his love of Star Wars, D&D, and also his HIGHLY geeky personality. Overall though, he is going to be my favorite character of the entire book though, because of his steadfastness and devotion to being Clary’s best friend forever  ~ insert vampire emoji here ~.