The+City+of+Ashes

=**City of Ashes**= =**Cassandra Clare**=

Original Publication Date: March 2009
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books ISBN: 1416914293 Language: English Hardcover: 464 Pages Price:$11.98 Reading Level: 13 and up Type: Fiction/ Science Fiction

Summary:
City of Ashes is the second installment to Cassandra Clare's series "The Mortal Instruments". It is a story about Clary Fray. Clary Fray is stuck between two lives: Her normal life where she goes to school and hangs out with her best friend, Simon, and the life of a Shadowhunter that she was born into but never really knew about because her mom was trying to protect her from it. Within this world, Clary learns about creatures that she only read about it stories. There are vampires, werewolves, demons, faeries, and warlocks. Along with that world, she has her newly founded brother Jace, who is as handsome as ever and a little too stubborn to listen to anybody but his own voice. Jace, someone who up until recently, Clary had feelings with and Jace, who is an extremely good shadowhunter but is stuck between doing what is right and between following in his father's, Valentine, footsteps that are considered evil and unlawful. So Clary must choose between going back to her normal life or learning how to be a shadowhunter and figuring out how to save her mother's life by waking her from her coma.

Author's Biography:
Cassandra Clare was born from American parents in Iran. As a child, Clare traveled a lot with her parents throughout Europe. Clare was hardly ever seen without a book under her arm during these travels. After completing her college degree Clare started off working as a writer for entertainment columns such as the __Hollywood Reporter__. Cassandra Clare now lives in Massachusetts with her boyfriend and her cats. She began her career as a writer in 2004. That year Clare started the first book of the Moral Instrument series "The City of Bones" and continued on to write this series until presently. Currently, Clare is working on the fifth installment of the Mortal Instruments and the third installment to her other series The Infernal Devices. Cassandra Clare would fall into the category of being a fantasy fiction writer and she chooses many of the settings for her novels based on places that she has lived in. A lot of the urban settings she shows in her Mortal Instrument novels are from the days were she used to write for magazines while living in Manhattan.

Review:
"City of Ashes" is a great book for any age. The best way to describe this series is by imagining "Harry Potter" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". It follows a group of teenagers who are all different in their personalities. Some more likable than others. This diverse group of teenagers however is able to come together and work as a team to fight against anybody who is breaking the law, even if it means fighting your father. The amount of paranormal creatures in this novel allow for there to be various characters that differ and you are not only introduced to one species, you get to meet all of the creatures and watch how they live amongst the humans. While you see these characters fighting to save other people's lives you see themes of friendship, love and honor hidden deep within the pages. Clare also does a great job of setting her readers up with one set of expectations but ending a chapter with a whole new can of mysteries. While reading this book I have cried, laughed, and even yelled. This book allows readers to connect to these characters because they all offer different strengths and weaknesses. Just when you think you have someone figured out, you find out that they really are not who you thought they were.

Analysis of Literary Element:
Character Development

When we first meet Clary, we see her as someone who does not know what she wants. She does not know whether she wants to be a shadowhunter and she most definitely does not know about her feelings for Jace. In this book, we get to look at Clary and watch her character develop into someone who begins to not only make choices for her self but also for others. One of the major conflicts that Clary has to overcome in this book is to stand up against her father who she knows is trying to bring chaos to the downworlders as well as the humans. We see this when Clary speaks with her father in the following passage:

"Valentine!" "You mean father. I despise this modern habit of calling one's parents by their names." "What I want to call you is a hell of a lot more unprintable than your name."

Clary is finally making choices for herself and one of those choices is to not look at her father as an influence of her life. Clary is also starting to tell others how she is feeling and even though she does not like how she feeling for others she admits them to others.

“Something inside Clary cracked and broke, and words came pouring out. 'What do you want me to tell you? The truth? The truth is that I love Simon like I should love you, and I wish he was my brother and you weren't, but I can't do anything about that and neither can you!”

Even though she should not have romantic feelings for Jace, Clary admits to them and tells them to Jace explaining how she should love him as a best friend, how she should love him like she loves Simon.

Related Links:
http://www.mortalinstruments.com/ http://www.cassandraclare.com/