City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments #5)
By Cassandra Clare
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Recommended Ages: 18+

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?

The Gist

I guess this one was marginally better than the last. But it still has a lot of the same problems. The characters aren’t growing or learning anything, the plot feels lackluster, and Clary is so busy playing make believe I lose the sense of threat and urgency. Sometimes it seems like the focus is so much on finding moments for Jace and Clary to make out that it loses other aspects, like pace, and plot.

What I Liked:

I was glad that Sebastian was in the book more. Not because I like his character (he’s just as annoying as the rest), but because having the villain in more of the story reminded me that there was a villain! That was something I thought book 3 really lacked.

Thank goodness for Alec and Magnus. They are a couple with REAL problems.  They are way less cliche and annoying than Jace and Clary and add a certain depth to the story. And we all know I’m a Magnus fangirl, so I’m down with anything involving more of him.

And FINALLY we have some foreshadowing of some big impending doom. This is the threat I’ve been waiting for, the one to make me care about what happens next and move the characters to not just live moment to moment.

What I Didn’t Like:

It feels like I harp on the same things with each review in this series.

Ugh Clary. Seriously? She is so delusional in this book when it comes to Jace. It’s like she can’t even be strong around him when the right guy should make you stronger. It’s like I’ve said before, these two should be growing in their relationship, not hovering around the same spot. I need to see character development. I get there will still be struggles but I need to see the characters I’m reading about have grown and can handle them better. Clary is acting the same as she did in book one.

And seriously, what is Cassandra’s creepy obsession with incest? It’s gross. Stop trying to fit it in.

The plot was confusing in parts and less-than-exciting in the rest. It felt like a quickly thrown together novel trying to be more.

LunasLuckyRating: 3/5 Lunas