Book Review: The Mortal Instruments
"All knowledge hurts."
Another book done, and it finished out a series, so here we are.
First though, I will respond to something on the internet that is rampant. Because my little sister accused me of going to the dark side for reading The Mortal Instruments this morning because of it. That The Mortal Instruments is 1) plagiarized and 2) the same as Harry Potter.
First the facts: This is an internet scandal that started because the author was a popular fanfiction writer of something called the Draco Trilogy. I've never read it, so this is all what I learned from internet articles on the issue. In was in some sort of an alternate universe where Draco was kind of a redeemed character and went on adventures with Harry, Ron and Hermione. The author, Cassandra Clare, took passages from that, and even some situations from that, and put them in The Mortal Instruments. But they were not Harry Potter specific things at all--they were bits of dialogue, or stories from their childhoods. The most famous one, in the fanfic, Draco's father gives him a falcon as a child, and then forces him to kill it after he grows attached to it. This story gets retained in The Mortal Instruments, except that it happens between Jace and his "father." (I put father in quotes for a reason). But she came up with it, and thought that it worked well. It was not in a previously published piece of literature, she wrote it. So, she put it in her story again. The character of Jace has many similarities to Draco (raised by a psycho father, has blonde hair...) but also many dissimilarities (his hair is golden blonde not white blonde, he is a Shadowhunter not a wizard, he is well-read, he is not a spoiled-rotten brat, he kills demons, not sits around an insults people of inferior birth). To insist that if someone has the same color of hair as a character and both characters were raised by a psycho father, they are plagiarisms of one another is kind of ridiculous.
The problem was that her fanfic (as the rules for internet published fanfics are different) contained quotes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Monty Python, etc. Uncredited ones. Supposed to be inside joke quotes. However, you can't put those in a published work. Some of the passages she lifted from her fanfic still had those quotes, but she took them out prior to publication of the series.
The fact of the matter is that she had actually published the fanfic because she published it on fanfiction.net. It is a grey area about whether or not she could reuse that writing again. She hadn't made any money on it, but you could make the argument of self-plagiarism, which is a thing. Look it up. However, it was definitely not intentional.
From this, people who had not heard the whole story just heard something about Harry Potter and plagiarism, and started drawing other comparisons which are just ridiculous comparisons to draw, and saying that The Mortal Instruments had no plot that wasn't like Harry Potter. They said that portals were just like Diagon Alley (because apparently no other book has had a form of magical transportation before), Muggles were Mundanes (because all words that start with "M-u" are now off-limits), and that's mostly it. And apparently because we're going there, and Clary has red hair, she is just Ginny, even though the characters have absolutely nothing in common. In personality, in back story. Nothing.
I'll get to my feelings about the series as a whole in a moment, so you'll see that I'm not in love with the series, but this is kind of a ridiculous argument. It has no plot? Let's compare the plots of the six/seven books.
(right click, view image and click to get a bigger version--or use Control +)
So, yes, they save the world. From now on, all saving of the world, stopping of psychopaths, psychopaths obsessed with not dying, and psychopaths murdering people in a book belongs to J.K. Rowling. Sorry J.R.R. Tolkien. I will concede that a father figure named Luke who is a werewolf is a little bit trite.
Now, for the actual review:
You have gotten an idea for what the series is from those summaries, so I'll skip that part. I have up and down feelings about this book, so we'll organize this series as the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The Good: Witty dialogue, inventive world, and a refreshing return to things like silver being bad for werewolves, and vampires not going out in the daytime (except for the Daylighter, but he's supposed to be an exception and unnatural). I liked references to Paradise Lost and The Bible that were quite clever sometimes (even if sometimes the references were wrong--like when she used the idea of Edom, I think she was thinking of Sheol). The characters were interesting and their struggles and flaws were very real. I cared about all the characters (except Clary, to be honest). It had a style that kept on drawing me back, even though I had mixed feelings about the writing style and whatnot. Again, very witty dialogue that brings us conversations that I just read over and over again because they were so awesome.
The Bad: 1) The author obviously has some sort of fame complex. She just can't get enough attention. It was supposed to be a trilogy, but she was making way too much money for that. So, even though it was completely wrapped up by the third book, she had to keep going. She had to create another plot. And the last book spend a lot of time planting seeds for so many spin-offs--spin-offs she has written. It just goes on forever. 2) The later books needed more editing. A lot more editing 3) She tries to get too pretentious sometimes. I don't mind characters who were supposed to have been raised in libraries quoting obscure literature, or peoples whose job it is to kill demons knowing dead languages. But you have to keep it in context. Plus, she is writing young adult urban fantasy, but trying to sound like Shakespeare which just makes her appear like an idiot. 4) She has some consistency problems later in the series. Biggest glaring issue is the parabatai. In the first book, parabatai are described as two people who, between the ages of 12 and 18, chose to swear to protect one another in battle, always look out for each other and have an eternal connection. Because of this, they get some advantages, like some sense for the other's well-being, having flashes of their thoughts (more like a sense of their thoughts) in order to facilitate more partnered fighting styles, etc. You can introduce more things about parabatais later in the series, and I'm okay with that. When they introduced in the sixth book that a rune given by a parabatai is more powerful, I was okay with that (the Shadowhunters can mark heavenly runes on their skin which give them power...temporary power, but power. There are healing runes, and strength runes, and you get the idea). This makes sense, and it does explain why, prior to going out into battle, Isabelle always marked herself, but Alec and Jace would mark each other (they are parabatai). But introducing the idea that Jace is injured, and so Alec screams out in pain? Why didn't Jace fall to the ground in the first book when Alec nearly died from demon poison? You have to keep your world consistent. 4) You can't say that Clary doesn't care about fashion and then spend a paragraph describing how she wishes she wore something more than just her vintage yellow dress with gray leggings. I know what it's like to be a girl that doesn't care about fashion. I can promise you that I have never had that internal conversation or anything like it. 5) Sometimes the cliches are off the charts. Yes, the main male character is named Jace, which is his initials pronounced. His actually name is Jonathan Christopher, making his initials JC. I couldn't make that up. 6) So, the first three books, the "City of x" actually refers to a place they go during that book. But then...it stops making sense.
The Ugly: Just because it's young adult doesn't mean you can't have teenagers who can control their impulses. Seriously, people. Get off one another. You are hiding in a cave in Edom. Isabelle almost died. And now she and Simon are making out? And then Jace and Clary go off into another corner to make-out? Get off of each other.
I didn't like Clary as much as any other character. She doesn't think and she is selfish. It's always about what she wants. To a very extreme degree. She blatant disrespects the choices of other people she loves because she wants to control their lives (twice) in very extreme ways.
Parental warnings: No sexual intercourse, but a lot of making out. One character is homosexual and comes out to his parents (one parent takes it well, the other does not at all), and then is openly homosexual. However, there are some talking points about loving homosexual people without condoning...the world isn't quite as black and white about homosexuality as they'd make it to be. Two characters fall in love and are then led to believe that they are siblings. They aren't, but for at least a book and a half they think they are, and yet they are still tempted to be with one another.
So, all in all, it's a three star series.
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