Showing posts with label Cassandra Clare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cassandra Clare. Show all posts

Monday, 22 August 2016

City of Lost Souls

*Disclaimer* This is the fifth book in “The Mortal Instruments” series so if you haven´t read the other four books yet, please be aware of spoilers. I would not advise reading if you want to start this series without being spoiled, but if you don´t mind feel free to continue on, just be warned. However if you have read City of Fallen Angels, this review won´t spoil the book.   

Title: City of Lost Souls
Author: Cassandra Clare
Pages: 554
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Rating: 4/5 Stars

What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

Cassandra Clare has done it again. Even though The Mortal Instruments is certainly not the best series I have ever read, Clare manages to make each book better, which is something I am in awe of. City of Lost Souls is my favourite instalment in this series so far. As some of you might know by now, I don´t particularly love how Cassandra Clare constructs her plots. I find them to be a bit too slow building to grab my full attention right away. But with this book it was a bit different. Clare uses multiple POVs to showcase different story arcs that at the end come together beautifully to build the finale, which to be honest wasn´t as great as the previous one in City of Fallen Angels. Still I found the overall plot in this book, to be probably the strongest in all of her books I have read so far. 

This book also gives the reader more of a background knowledge of different characters, which I very much appreciated. Once again Clare highlights a certain character, in the last one it was Simon, in this one it is Alec. We haven´t seen as much of Alec as other characters, so it was nice getting to know him and the way he thinks more.  But where this books really shines is in Jace´s character development. We see him and Sebastian being melted and separated and melted and separated over and over again, so I wasn´t quite sure how much of the real Jace was left. But in the epilogue we see how much he has grown due to this circumstance. I reckon if I would reread this book, I would be able to pick up on a lot more subtle hints that point in this direction.

So what else is there to say? Well the classic things that Cassandra Clare is known for. It is a really funny book, I am a fan of all the relationships (seriously I ship them all) and I LOVE the nudges to the Infernal Devices, those are so great. Also it was really fun seeing bits of every city they went to.
What is your favourite ship from TMI? Let me know in the comments down below!
Read on xx

Lena

Wednesday, 10 August 2016

August Releases

A bit late, but but at least you can already get most of these releases now, right? ;)

Enter Title Here, by Kanakia Rahul

As the end of summer approaches, so does the time where we grab for the last contemporary book on our TBR-Piles. But which book would be better to chime in the beginning of fall/the start of the new school year than a combination of contemporary and school. Rashmi is the typical over the top-perfect-in-everything kind of student, who just wants to go to Stanford. So to get herself a head start she gets herself a literary agent. But to write a more relatable novel she starts doing all the typical American girl things like get a boyfriend.
Published August 2nd


It Ends With Us, by Colleen Hoover

Have I ever read a Colleen Hoover book? Well…. no. But with such a huge following, like she has I would think it is safe to say, that her books are quite enjoyable. From what I have heard so far it seems as it is another crowd pleasing favourite, which is enjoyed better the less you know about it, so we are going to leave it at that.
Published August 2nd


Attack on Titan, Volume 19

I have by no means caught up with this series yet, but it is always nice to have another volume of this AMAZING series. After Titans destroyed most of humanity, Humanity has withdrawn into one last city. The story picks up five hundred years later, when suddenly a colossal titan appears, who destroys the saving wall. I would highly recommend this series, especially if you liked the Mistborn series, by Brandon Sanderson.
Published August 2nd


Nevernight, by Jay Kristoff

This book! It has everything I could ever want (except for maybe dragons and ice cream, but I haven´t read it yet, so who knows?): an assassin, a boarding school AND magic? Heck yes, sign me in! But I am still a bit anxious, as the reviews so far have been really split. It seems that people either love or hate this book, so we will see.
Published August 11th


The Bronze Key, by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare

I read the first book, called “The Iron Trial”, a couple of months ago. It is a fun Middle Grade series, in which the main protagonist Callum goes to this magic school. It reminded me a bit of Harry Potter, so if you have already finished the Cursed Child and can´t let go this one offers a similar premise.
Published August 30th


Furthermore, by Tahereh Mafi

Tahereh Mafi is best known for her bestselling Shatter Me series, which once again: I have not read yet! So I can´t go off that but the synopsis sounds cool. Apparently colour plays a big role in this one so that will be a new concept, that I have never seen done before.
Published August 30th




Wednesday, 6 July 2016

June Wrap Up


Let´s call this month “Lena is only reading Cassandra Clare” month, shall we?  Because her books are seemingly all that I have read in the last thirty days. (Except for one book I didn´t like, but who cares)

ClockworkAngel, by Cassandra Clare    3.5/5 Stars 
A “fine” first instalment in TID series

City ofFallen Angels, by Cassandra Clare             4/5 Stars
Liked it; not my favourite in the series so far, but good
Really didn´t like it; ended up DNFing it
Loved it, had some problems with it, but I am looking forward to the finale; review coming soon!

Do you guys like it, if I only say a bit about the books in Wrap-Ups or do you want me to do something else? Let me know in the comments down below!
Read on xx

Lena

Thursday, 30 June 2016

Clockwork Prince, by Cassandra Clare

*Disclaimer* This is the second book in the "Infernal Devices” trilogy so if you haven´t read the first book yet please be aware of spoilers. I would not advise reading if you want to start this series without being spoiled, but if you don´t mind feel free to continue on, just be warned. However if you have read Clockwork Angel, this review won´t spoil the book .



Title: Clockwork Prince
Author: Cassandra Clare
Pages: 560
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Rating: 4/5 Stars

In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa’s powers for his own dark ends.

With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister’s war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them.
Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, but her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?
As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.

I was sick when I picked this book up, so I wasn´t sure whether I was really gonna get some reading done or not. But this book! If you have read my review of “Clockwork Angel” (which you can read here) you know that I didn´t like it as much as I would have liked to and I am really happy to say that I loved Clockwork Prince. The plot was so much more enjoyable than pretty much any other Cassandra Clare book I have read so far. (I am gonna make a post on why that is soon) It was action packed with LOTS of plot twists. You think the story is going to evolve in a certain direction and then “BAM”, no. Plot twist. Also their actions were comprehensible (Apart from that weird ghost scene; that was just weird). They were acting like real human beings, which I liked. A great example for that are Jem and Tessa. Instead of doing something stupid, they actually TALKED! About their feelings! Like adults! Finally some YA characters who talk about their problems/feelings instead of running away from them. (I am looking at you Jace Wayland)
This book in a whole is just so full of romance! Not only ones involving Tessa, but we also get to know the dynamic between Charlotte and Henry more, which I loved. But the most prominent relationships are certainly the ones involving Tessa. Clare kills the reader with that damn love triangle. In my review I also said that I wasn´t the biggest fan of Wills yet, but that has CHANGED! We get to know why Will acts like he does and I am sooooo in love with him, please marry me! The love triangle is constructed to be an absolute masterpiece. Clare manages to let the reader see what Tessa feels about Jem and Will and shows two different men, who both have their own reasons for being loveable. Especially in the beginning I shipped Jem and Tessa and Will with myself (sorrynotsorry), but somewhere in the middle I realised that I wanted Tessa to be with Will as well as Jem. I found the romance to be quite Insta Lovey, but once I got over that, I was in it to win it. Apart from that the only complaint I have is that some of the expressions were not appropriate for the 19th century and that Tessa was a bit naïve some times.

So I am basically a mess right now and can´t wait to read Clockwork Princess. 

Read on xx
Lena

Sunday, 26 June 2016

City of Fallen Angels, by Cassandra Clare

*Disclaimer* This is the fourth book in the “The Mortal Instruments” series, so if you haven´t read the first three books yet please be aware of spoilers. I would not advise reading this post if you want to start this series without being spoiled, but if you don´t mind continue on, just be warned. However if you have read the other three books, this review won´t spoil the fourth book.

Title: City of Fallen Angels
Author: Cassandra Clare
Pages: 480
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Rating: 4/5

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. When Jace begins to pull away from her without explaining why, Clary is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: she herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

I enjoyed this book very much. It wasn´t as great as City of Glass, but I was happy to see all my little babies happy again, after having suffered through the events of the past books.  Well kind of happy, since Jace and Clary face lots of struggles in this book. This leads me to one of my complaints for this book: Why in the name of the angel (see what I did there?) is Clary always on the edge of tears? She is pretty much always sad or people worry about her being sad, where did that come from? Luckily that stopped halfway through, or else I would have been really annoyed. Another thing was their relationship in general. The prominent problem I have with Jace is that instead of talking to someone about his feelings, fears or whatever, he just bottles everything up. And now that he is in a relationship one would think that he would talk to Clary, but nope. He much rather leaves her standing and goes off distracting himself.
But let´s talk about Simon. This instalment is the most Simon we have gotten so far and I love it! He is one of my favourites from this series with Isabella, who we also see lots in this book, though by far not as much as Simon. There are new character intruded as well, like Kyle, whom I really like. Sadly we don´t get lots from Alec and Magnus until the end, except from hilarious vacation snaps. Also they went to Vienna, my hometown, so that was cool. Big fan of these two, I ship it.
But gosh the ending! Once again it was the highlight of the whole book! It was really intense and fast moving. For the first time it wasn´t fully relying on fighting, but rather on suspense, which I really liked. One thing I have noticed in Cassandra Clare´s books though is that I am not a big fan of the way she paces her books. They always start out slow, exploring what happened in the last book and slowly starts building plot until the last hundred pages or so, where we finally get tons of action. This is the main reason why I give most of her books only 4 stars, as for the most part of the book I feel like the story is dragging a bit, but then BUM last 100 pages, the action is finally here. Don´t get me wrong I like the formula, but by now it feels a bit generic. I would much rather prefer it if she would give us a bit more of a faster pace in the first three to four hundred paged as well. By now though I finally feel attached to the characters (finally, it took quite some time) and I really want to know what happens next, because that ending gurl, that ending!
Have you read “City of Fallen Angels” and if so, what did you think of it?
Read on xx
Lena

Thursday, 9 June 2016

Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare

Title: Clockwork Angel
Author: Cassandra Clare
Pages: 479
Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Rating: 3.5/5

When Tessa Gray crosses the Atlantic to follow her brother Nate to England, she gets kidnapped by the mysterious Pandemonium Club. Tessa find out that there is much more to this world than she knew. Vampires, Faries, Demons exist and she is one of them. She takes refugee with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who promise her to help her look for her brother, if she will help them with her powers.

I am currently marathoning all of Cassandra Clare´s book in order of publication date. I know I am late to the game, but better late than never, right? Having heard lots about this series I expected two things from this book: That it would be faaaaar better than “The Mortal Instruments” and that I would absolutely fall in love with Will Herondale. Now I have read this book but I can´t really approve of either of these statements. I liked the Mortal Instruments. I didn´t love them like everybody else did but I liked them. To be quite frankly I didn´t really see the difference between the two series. Yes, they take place in two completely different time periods and TMI doesn´t have the clockwork monsters, but in both series the main character is a girl who finds out she isn´t who she thought she was and she plays a big role in the Shadowhunter universe, both have a love triangle, where one of the love interests is really rude *hust* Will Herondale *hust* and a girl, who acts like she doesn´t care about anything but can fight real good if she has to (=Isabelle/Jessamine).
But there are some things The Mortal Instruments had that Clockwork Angel just doesn´t. Tessa doesn´t really care about anything except herself and Will and books. Don´t even get me started on Will. On Jace the rudeness was charming, but Will just takes it too far sometimes. It made me smile yes, especially Tessa´s answers, but was it something that made me fall in love with him, so that now he is my ultimate book boyfriend? Heck no! Maybe that will change, the farther into the series I get, because I will learn more about the characters and I will have a greater appreciation of them. We will see.
So what did I like about this book? The change in scenery and time period brought something different. Until now I haven´t really read a steampunk so I had a great time exploring this new genre, which I now really want to read more from, so if you have any good suggestions let me now in the comments down below! Also I loved getting these little nuggets Cassandra Clare put in for the readers of both series. For example the Pandemonium, some of the reoccurring families, church and mostly MAGNUS! I loved how he played a tiny part in this as well. It gave me, as somebody who reads both series right now, a real understanding of how old he really is.
I don´t really have any complex thoughts of this series, but the reason I think this book definitely deserves three and a half stars, was the plot twist at the end. Without it I would have only given it three stars, so yes read it till the end! I am still going to continue with the series, after I finished “City of Fallen Angels”. Hopefully I will love “Clockwork Prince” more, I still have hopes!
Have you read “Clockwork Angel”? And if so what did you think of it? Let me know down in the comments below!
Read on xx

Lena

Sunday, 29 May 2016

My Summer TBR

Summer is now almost upon us, which also means one signifcant thing (apart from ice cream; ice cream is important the whole year round): SCHOOOOL´S OUT
Where I live, school ends at the first of July. Still a couple of weeks away, but not as far as one might believe, since time tends to fly, especially at the end of the schoolyear. But even though the holidays are still more than a month away, all the final tests and such end at the beginning of June. This means I will have lots of free time to spend on reading (and ice cream, once again ice cream is important). So I thought it would be fun to share what my reading plans are for this summer, so that in September I will be able to really see, which of my reading goals I accomplished. All of these books are in no particular order, as I really hope to get to all of them in the next few months.
Before you get into this list, I just wanted to let you know, that in this List there are only books included, which I either already own or want to lend from my local library, as I don´t really have enough money to buy most of my Anticipated BookReleases for this Summer
I am going to use #SeriesSummer to participate in the project started by JBookLover13 (Shoutout by the way, your videos are awesome). It is her way of keeping on track with reading all of her unread series and as I have some on my shelves as well I thought it would be a cool idea to participate. The goal of #SeriesSummer is to keep you motivated to read series, with no particular goals, except your personal ones.

City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, City of Heavenly Fire, and the Infernal Devices Trilogy, all by Cassandra Clare

I finally decided to give The Mortal Instruments another shot, so I reread “City of Bones” and “City of Ashes”. Both of which I liked, but not really loved. But for the first time I continued and read “City of Glass”. And OH.MY.GOD. I get all the hype around these books now. It´s not as good of a series as for example the “Lunar Chronicles” in my opinion, but still really good. I found them to be more of a guilty pleasure series, that you need to be hooked on to love, but once I got into it, I was addicted. So now have to wait until Wednesday, because that´s when my package of the last three books will arrive. I also read that you are supposed to read Cassandra Clare´s books in order of publishing date, so that is exactly what I´m gonna do.

City of Fallen Angels



City of Lost Souls



City of Heavenly Fire



Clockwork Angel:


Clockwork Prince


Clockwork Princess


All of the Infernal Devices in a Boxed Set (I would recommend buying them book by book, for some reason it´s cheaper)



Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes

“Me Before You”, seems to have taken over every reader’s bookshelf, as I have seen it supposedly everywhere these last few months. And now that the movie is coming out soon, I decided I should probably finally read it. It is advertised as this great romance book, where Louise takes a job as a caretaker for Will, whom she is the first to treat like a normal person. They fall in love because it´s a Romance Novel and supposedly something sad happens and I am ready. Ready to cry.



The Percy Jackson Series, by Rick Riordan


This is the only reread I have on this list, since I don´t particularly like rereading things, but I figured I should reread at least one book/series. It has been about seven years since I have read the series for the first time, gosh time really flies by, so I don´t remember a lot of details, which is why I chose this series. We follow our main character Percy, who finds out he is a demi god so he goes to this camp over the summer, Camp Halfblood. Camp Halfblood is a camp particularly for the children of other greek gods, like Percy. I remember this series being tons of fun so I am really pumped about reliving all of Percy´s adventures with him once more.



Ruin and Rising and Six of Crows, both by Leigh Bardugo


As I have also mentioned in my post about My Top 10 Anticipated Summer Releases, I was surprised by how much I liked the first two books in this series. I was a big fan of the Russian setting and can´t wait to finally know how Bardugo is going to conclude this series. I can´t really talk about the plot, in fear of spoiling something, but just know that the Grisha Trilogy is set in a russsian inspired world, where there are people with magical abilities, called grishas. During the books we follow a girl called Alina, who finds out that she is the first grisha in thousands of years who can summon light. There is also this fold of darkness, and one of the best villains ever, but just know that you should read it.
 I also own “Six of Crows” which is the companion/follow up (?????) series set in the same universe as the Grisha Trilogy, after its events. All of the reviews I have read, were completely raving about how much better, than the Grisha Trilogy it is, so that makes me even more excited. This book basically follows a couple of different characters in pursuing a heist. And heist stories are my favourites so that´s that.

Ruin and Rising



Six of Crows



The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruis Zafón

This is the first book of the month in the Uncovered Book Club, which is hosted by Max from WellDoneBooks and Raeleen from Padfootandprongs07. Both of them are Booktubers, whose content I really enjoy watching and I have had this book on my shelves for quite some time. It also has been recommended to me, so all in all I thought this read along would be to perfect opportunity to finally read this book. It is set in Barcelona during 1945, after the Spanish Civil War. A boy named Daniel finds this books. After reading it he looks for more books by the same author to discover that someone is destroying all of the author´s books.



Since You´ve Been Gone, by Morgan Matson

This will be my first Morgan Matson book, but from what I have gathered all her books are the perfect light, but really fun, summer contemporary read. I can already picture myself laying in our garden, with some ice cream (hehehe) on a nice summer evening, reading this. The main character´s name is Emily and she is more of a wallflower, whose best friend Sloane suddenly disappears. But Sloane leaves her a list of tasks to complete, so Emily checks all of them of, during the course of summer in hope of finding Sloane in doing so. Have I mentioned that they are eating ice cream on the cover?



Y-The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughn, Pia Guerra and José Marzán Jr.

The first and only graphic novel series on this list. I read the first volume a couple weeks ago and loved it, but haven´t been able to get to my local library since then to get the other volumes. The reason I picked it up, and damn am I happy I did that, is that the writer is the writer who also wrote Saga, which is my second favourite graphic novel series of all time. Even though it is not as great as “Saga”, which is mostly due to the artstyle. And my preference in fantasy, but mostly the art. But sill it is just as funny as “Saga”, if not even more. In “Y-The Last Man” all the man die. Just like *snap* all of them dead, on the floor. Except Yorrick and his pet monkey Ampersand. The story then follows, them finding out why they are still alive, while also fighting for survival.



Daughter Of Smoke and Bone Trilogy, by Laini Taylor

I got the box set from my mother for my birthday, and now it just sits on my shelf sits just waiting for summer holidays waiting to be marathoned. It has, as far as I know, only received praise, especially due to Taylor´s writing and is many people´s favourite series. I am not quite sure what it is about except that it is about this art student Karou, who draws monsters and collects teeth, I recall? It is also set in Prague and I have never read anything set there, but I think she will capture its essence just right.


The Well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson

So far, the first book in the Mistborn Trilogy, is one of my favourite books of this year. It was everything I didn´t know I wanted and so much more. Again I can´t really go into the plot of this book, because spoilers, but I don´t even want to really know what it is about anyway. Just know that “The Final Empire”, the first book, is something every fantasy lover should read. The bad guy has won and has already ruled the land for hundreds of years. There is also this awesome thing were a few people can burn metal to access powers. A small gang of those people, group together to take down the emperor in a nearly suicidal heist. Picture it as an Ocean 11 with magic, which sounds like everything you could need in life, doesn´t it? Believe me it is.


Rebel Belle, by Rachel Hawkins

I have owned this book for about six months now, which is quite a long time for not reading a book, which I am really excited for. But I am really scared of the sequels. From everything I gathered, most people loved the first book, but found the other two to be mediocre at best. So somehow in my head it seems like a rational decision to not read it, even though I want to!
The story basically follows this southern “Belle”, named Harper, who on her Prom Night becomes a Paladin. Now she has to protect her arch enemy David, whose fate could very well destroy earth. Sounds so ridiculous, but awesome indeed.



What did you guys think of my list? Have you read any books on it? And what are you guys reading this summer? Let me know in the comments down below together with what kind of ice cream is your favourite! ;P
Read on xx

Lena