City of Heavenly Fire is the final installment of The Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Clare. I read the first five last year, in a reading frenzy. I had a while to wait and looked forward to the final book, which came out May 27. Here’s what I thought!

Plot

There is no absence of action in this book, like the others in the series. Unlike the others, this one took a while to get there. There was a looooong prologue which introduced all new characters. After waiting months to find out what’s going on with Clary and Jace, I did not want to wait anymore. Then there was a bunch of werewolf stuff, which I never cared as much about.

Characters

Cassandra Clare was very good about tweeting and posting tiny snippets to keep us going until release day. One of the things she said was that six characters we know by name will die. So, I was worried because after five books, I love Clary and Jace and the rest of the clan. Luckily, she didn’t say six characters we love will die, and some deaths I not only didn’t care about, but was happy about, so thank goodness she didn’t pull the thing that a recent author did… (no, still not over it). By the end, I felt like everything was going well for the characters, happy endings and all that.

Writing Quality

Cassandra Clare has a decent writing quality, but there is one thing that drives me bonkers while I’m reading and causes many eye rolls. That’s cliches. Oh, are there so many characters sitting bolt upright and characters whose smiles don’t touch their eyes. But other than that, it’s not bad.

Entertainment

I ended up giving five stars to four of the first five books. I think it was partly because I got sucked into the world quickly and I wanted more and more. After months of waiting and living in other book worlds, some of that urgency left. It was still good, and I still enjoyed it, but I just didn’t have the same level of must-read-now as I did with the others.

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Did you read it? What did you think?