City of Bones

hmm...I'm truly at a loss as to how to rate this one. Was it great? ummm, not really. Was it terrible? No. Were there places in the book that really did have great potential? Yeah. Did they live up to that potential? No. Some parts were well laid out but then there were other parts where I felt like I was reading the back of a cereal box. Going with the cereal box theme, I'm just going to list what I liked and didn't like. Maybe that'll help me decide how many stars.

Didn't like
-Clary and Jace have got to be some of the most immature, whiney, bratty teen characters I've ever read (though I've read worse coughvampire diariescough). There were times when I wondered how old Clary was supposed to be because she was acting like a spoiled 10 year old.

-I hate the word mundane and how it's used here. Why can't authors (or at least ya authors) just call them normal, plain people? I hated it when a certain british author who shall not be named did it and I hated it here. It always ends up sounding snotty and superior. And it irritates me and becomes a distraction

-my biggest dislike? Clare's extreme over use of similes. Seriously. No need to say fist like iron when you can simply say iron fist. I can't completely blame the author for this. Her editor at Simon & Schuster should have worked to contain those (oh and dear S&S editor...there is no need to both italicize and bold words. One or the other provides plenty of emphasis)

Rolled my eyes at
- the whole that's my dad ridiculous plot point. Wasn't impressed that the author went there, but it's not like this is the first book to go there and I'm sure it won't be the last.

What I liked
-Magnus. He's just cool. His party had an Wonderland feel to it. He's a combination of Chesire and Hatter.

-Luke. granted his character isn't very deep, but there was enough there to keep me interested.

-The demon fueled transportation. Better than brooms or bird like flight abilities.

-the library at the institute

sigh...not sure listing all that helped, but I'm going with 2 stars. Maybe 2 1/2. There was just enough there to entice me to read book 2, but it's way, way down on my tbr list.