Perhaps most sane readers would give up on a series as flawed as The Mortal Instruments, but my obsessive compulsive finish-every-series-you-start-disorder forced me to continue. Hence, this is not just a review of City of Heavenly Fire but the whole series and what it has culminated in.
So in this book Sebastian (who else thinks of Ariel’s under-the-sea companion?!) is spreading his influence wherever he can, forcing Shadowhunters to drink from the Infernal Cup and become Endarkened: evil Shadowhunters with unwavering loyalty to him. Clary and the gang must of course go and stop this themselves in the Mystery Machine (whoops, wrong franchise!).
And then I forget what happens because most of the plot was lost in pointless love scenes, villainous monologues and lavish descriptions of Jace, which also let us know what Clare’s feelings are regarding the colour gold, in case we didn’t already guess this from his GOLDEN eyes or his GOLDEN hair or his GOLDEN skin or other GOLDEN assets he may or may not exhibit!
My first quarrel is that I simply cannot comprehend why Clarissa Morgernstern/Fray/Fairchild is regarded as the latest positive role model for teenage girls in literature. I’ve heard people waxing lyrical about how “strong” and “brave” and “real” she is, and I dispute absolutely all of it. Why?
In City of Heavenly Fire, Clary spent almost the entire book stuck on a sort of loop. She’d obsess over Jace for a while, then he would get angsty and things would go cold. Usually she’d then stumble across something relevant, before being confronted with a fight that she would contribute nothing to, yet somehow she’d still pass out and wake up being cared for as though she were a wounded soldier. And then the loop would repeat itself.
And that’s just when we’re NOT getting overly lengthy descriptions of Jace, of his “golden eyes of a lion” or how his beautiful blonde hair floated around his head like a halo or how his golden skin rippled as emotions chased themselves across his face (one of Clare’s favourite lines) or how the marks were like glorious tattoos of scripture or how he was so beautiful that Clary’s ovaries regularly disintegrated into dust on sight. And that’s not including the point in City of Lost Souls where they came this close to “doing it” and poor Clarissa was so very aroused that she passed out. *sniggers*
But on a more serious note: it bothers me that some girls my own age see Clary as a powerful heroine and the latest feminist icon. Whenever something happens that could potentially damage her well-being she niftily avoids coming under actual harm by passing out, or being knocked unconscious by that demon she was just about to go all Lara Croft on, and goddammit I missed all the action! Guess that demon was just too darn advanced for me. Hope everyone else was okay but JACE. I mean, JACE. Seriously though: JACE.
It’s very clear from this that Clary is a wish fulfilment sort of character. Jace, from all these boring-as-hell descriptions and details of how and why he is so very absolutely and utterly flawless (but WAIT – he has a chipped tooth, which obviously shows that, like everyone else, Jace is human too!) is clearly the ideal man of the teenage Cassandra Clare, and she wants him to be everyone else’s too. I don’t claim to be an expert, but in my opinion a true heroine takes her life into her own hands and doesn’t allow her happiness to centre around whether or not an attractive guy has spared her a glance that day.
I, however, cannot deal with how self-centred Clary, Jace, and indeed the rest of these characters are. Take this: Clary and Simon have just discovered that their ally, friend, and protector Jordan Kyle is dead. Do they cry? Sit in despairing silence together? Make a cheesy speech about how Jordan would have wanted them to be strong? No. They make jokes about Clary’s undersized pyjamas and Jordan is barely mentioned from there on out.
This leads me on to something else: Clare is hyped up to be an author that takes so many risks – indeed in the build up to the release of COHF I saw so many internet users panicking over who would live and who would die.
The truth is that no one that readers actually care about is actually lost, or even comes close to being lost. One incidence near the end, with Simon losing his memory of Clary, his vampirism and the entire Shadowhunter world (somehow this extends to his family and “mundane” friends too…? I smell plot conveniences…) made me think that Clare had actually surpassed herself for once and pulled some tragedy and realism out of the bag. But of course that was far too much for me to hope for and I should never be so foolish again. OF COURSE there’s a way to get Simon’s memory back Bronte dear God stop being so miserable all the time don’t you know about the ancient and oh-so-convenient magic of the Shadowhunter world?!
I was disappointed – Simon had potential. Which is to say: on the general scale of quality characters, Simon is somewhere between Marina of The Lorien Legacies and Minho of The Maze Runner. Make of that what you will.
Maybe if Cassandra Clare had learned from her mistakes I could find this series slightly more than just tolerable, which is how it stands right now. I admit the writing quality (slightly) improves by the sixth book – but not enough for me to call it quality stuff. For instance, although we no longer get similes insisting that dead leaves “rattle like dried bones across the pavement”, we are expected to believe that Tess Gray’s eyes are “the colour of rainwater”. If anyone knows what colour rainwater is, please let me know.
For me if a book doesn’t get me involved, doesn’t leave something behind once I’ve turned the final page, doesn’t leave me knee-deep in thoughtfulness or emotion at least for a minute or two, it’s not been worth it. When I put down COHF, the first thing I thought was “Thank God for that”. I’ve not spared a thought for it since!
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
