Overhyped – DaneCobain.com

Cassandra Clare – City of Fallen Angels | Review

Title: City of Fallen Angels

Author: Cassandra Clare

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 448

Rating: 3.5*/5

Cassandra Clare – City of Fallen Angels

This is book number four in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series, and as such it’s part of the series of buddy reads that I’ve been doing with a few BookTube friends of mine in which we’re trying to work our way through each of Cassie Clare’s books by doing one a month.

This isn’t the best so far, because that honour falls to City of Glass (which even then was only a 4/5). Still, it was all right, and definitely better than Clockwork Angel, the last book we read. Cassandra Clare seems to be some sort of divisive author that you either love or hate, but so far I’m pretty sure she’s just fine. Overhyped, perhaps, but her books aren’t garbage. Neither are they good enough to unseat Agatha Christie as my favourite (or at least, “most read”) female author. She’s just okay, you know?

The story line of this book felt a little weaker than those of others, and I’m bothered by how much of an emphasis keeps being placed on bringing characters back from the dead. I’ve always hated when authors do that because I think it cheapens death, and Clare does it in abundance. There are a few characters who I’m pretty sure have died and come back to life multiple times now, and we’re at the point where even if a major character like Magnus Bane were to die, I really wouldn’t care. In Clare’s world, dying and coming back to life is as common as changing your outfit.

Cassandra Clare

I also wasn’t too keen on the antagonist here. I think Valentine worked pretty well as a bad guy if only because he was so unorthodox, and because I could understand his motivation. But now, we’re pretty much left with antagonists who want the world to burn just for the sake of it, making it feel like something of a farce at times. I struggled to figure out why they were acting the way they were acting, although perhaps that’s my fault as a reader. I don’t know, I wasn’t paying too much attention.

Part of that was because of all of the love stuff. I mean, I get that that’s what a lot of this series is based on, but I really don’t care if Clary and Jace end up together or who Simon decides he wants to sleep with. In fact, every time two characters share a lovey-dovey moment, the pace of the damn story stops as suddenly as a car driving into a wall. Make of that what you will.

Cassandra Clare Quote

Click here to buy City of Fallen Angels.

John Green – Turtles All the Way Down | Review

Title: Turtles All the Way Down

Author: John Green

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 288

Rating: 4*/5

John Green – Turtles All the Way Down

To a certain extent, I already knew what I was getting into here. John Green’s writing feels a little more mature to me now, and that’s a good thing, but if you’ve read one of his books before then you’ll instantly slide back into his writing style. The characters are much the same as his characters usually are, too.

But we do get the anxiety and OCD representation from Aza which I found relatable, for the most part, although a lot of the things that she did annoyed me. But then that happens with most of his characters. I’m a little too old to fit the target market, but I do still think he’s a pretty good writer. He did a great job here of showing what it’s like to have intrusive thoughts, but I would have liked to have seen a little more of the murder mystery. Just like pretty much everyone else I’ve talked to.

On the whole, the dialogue and the narrative itself are pretty well handled here, and there are some great one-liners and intriguing ideas about life, the universe and everything. On the other hand, at one point he wrote “she said, askingly” and it made me want to vomit. I’m not sold on that even being a word but if it is, it’s a bad one. He could have just said “she asked”.

All in all though, this was a pretty good read. Overhyped perhaps, but that was always going to be the case. It’s certainly not a bad book, and I was impressed. I enjoyed it.