City of Bones

Title: City of Bones

Series: The Mortal Instruments - book 1

Author: Cassandra Clare

Rating: 5 stars

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Number of Pages: 443

Publisher: Walker Books

Publication Date: 2007

Summary: It's after dark in New York City, and Clary Fray is seeing things. The best-looking guy in the night club just stabbed a boy to death - but the victim has vanished into thin air. Her mother has disappeared, and a hideous monster is lurking in her apartment. With her life spiraling into darkness, Clary realises that she has stumbled into an invisible war between ancient demonic forces and the secretive Shadowhunters - a war in which she has a fateful role to play...

First of all I think I should start off by saying that the Mortal Instruments is my favourite book series and Cassandra Clare is my favourite author, therefore anything and everything written in this post is totally bias :)

I picked up this book to read for two reasons. First I want to re-read all the books set in the Shadowhunter universe before the release of Lady Midnight in March and secondly because this months TBR challenge was to read a book that was either a TV or movie adaption and this series is both. The TV show premiered today and the movie was released in August 2013.

Cassandra Clare creates a fun and sexy world of Shadowhunters. Her characters are diverse, her plot lines filled with brilliant minor and major story lines. Even in just this first book of the series each of the characters face some major challenges, challenges that shape and change who they always thought they were. While most of the character development that occurs in this book isn't really seen in until City of Ashes the ending of this book doesn't just leave you with the cliff hanger of what is going to happen next, but how the characters are going to cope. And I have never read a book that has invested me in the characters as much as Cassandra Clare's writing does. This book is driven forward as much by a compelling story line as it is by an amazing set of characters.

Cassandra Clare's writing style, however, is what I love the most about her books. Cassandra has such a creative way of writing. She balance show and telling well and fills her writing with creative, witty and just plain funny metaphors and similes that brings the Shadowhunter world alive and off and the page. In fact all her dialogue is written in a fun and enjoyable way that doesn't take from the seriousness of the situation nor make what is happening unbelievable (especially from Jace).

“It wouldn't be my move," Jace agreed. "First the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order.” 

“The meek may inherit the earth, but at the moment it belongs to the conceited. Like me.” 

“Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie. (Jace Wayland)” 

“Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt.” 

“Sorry, are you telling me that your demon-slaying buddies need to be driven to their next assignment with the forces of darkness by my mom?”

And that is just a small taster of some of the good lines in the book - this list doesn't even include some of the best. Mostly because I couldn't chose.

If you love Urban Fantasy, High Fantasy, any kind of fantasy, adventure, kick butt characters and books about worlds colliding this is totally for you. 

Ruby Red

Title: Ruby Red

Series: Precious Stone Trilogy - book 1

Author: Kerstin Gier (Anthea Bell - translator)

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Number of Pages: 322

Publication Date: 2011 (first published 2009)

Publisher: Square Fish

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Gwen lives with her extended - and rather eccentric - family in an exclusive London neighborhood. In spite of her ancestors' peculiar history, she's had a relatively normal life so far. The time-travelling gene that runs like a secret thread through the female half of the family is supposed to have skipped over Gwen, so she hasn't been introduced to 'the mysteries,' and can spend her time hanging out with her best friend, Lesley. It comes as an unwelcome surprise when she starts taking sudden, uncontrolled leaps into the past.

She's totally unprepared for time travel, not to mention all that comes with it: fancy clothes, archaic manners, a mysterious secret society, and Gideon, her time-traveling counterpart. He's obnoxious, a know-it-all, and possibly the best looking guy she's seen in any century...

The main thing I loved about this book was its take on time travel. I don't know about you, but I suck at physics and things like time travel and the effects that the past has on the future, has always left me infuriatingly confused! Thankfully this book managed to give some detail on how time travel worked without me wanting to throw the book across the room. Kerstin hit the amount of detail needed right on the head; simple is good!

My other main love about this book was how normal Gwen was. As much as I love it when characters are gifted with one or two extraordinary talents, I actually loved the fact that Gwen was the most average, normal teenage girl ever! She enjoys hanging out with her friends, watching movies, spending time with her slightly crazy family; the whole ability to time travel, not something she has ever thought she would have, nor particularly wanted. Although I think she may have slightly enjoyed taking her phone into the past and taking pictures for her best friend. But shhh! don't tell the crazy secret society guys!

As for the character's in this book, they were the quirky and loveable kind. Some more detail on a few of the more major characters would have been nice, but I feel like that is something that will be flushed out a bit more in the next book

This book was fun to read, and it was refreshing and unique. I did find a few points dragged a bit and I would loved to have learnt just something about this big secret in the first book, but oh well, you can't have everything. I'm really excited to pick up the second and third books of this trilogy.

I kind of wish I could read German, because I'm really curious as to how the translated version stacks up next to the original. Also this book has been made into a film, a German film, I should probably say! However, there are both English dubbed and subbed versions to found if you look hard enough.

I'm giving this book 4 stars.

Beautiful Creatures

Title: Beautiful Creatures

Series: Caster Chronicles - book 1

Authors: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Rating: 4.5 stars

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal

Number of Pages: 563

Publication Date: 2009

Publisher: Little Brown Books

I have been wanting to read this book since the movie came out in 2013. I saw the trailer for the movie and was hooked, then I found out it was a book and wanted to read the story first. So I FINALLY got round to reading it; it's been a slow at uni, so I also watched the movie.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl is the story of boy meets girl. Ethan Wate lives in small town Gatlin where the same boring things happen day in and day out. That is until Lena Duchannes moves to town. Lena is the niece of the town recluse, Macon Ravenwood, and as an outsider to this small community Lena quickly becomes the target of small mindness and is accused of being a devil worshiping witch. But Ethan isn't concerned with what anyone in town has to say about Lena, all he wants to know is why he has been dreaming about her months...when he has never meet her before...

I loved the plot of this book, I found it unique and different. While the story is a little slow to begin with, the writing itself is fluent and easy to get dragged into. Once the story really got going I found this book impossible to put down and the last 100 pages completely flew by. The magic in this book was done in a fantastic way, it was different but not to the point that you got an information dump.

The characters in this book were well done as well and I loved the comparison that were made between the characters in the story and those of To Kill a Mockingbird because some of these characters definitely shared the small mindedness of this classic. The character development of Ethan was well done, he grew and learnt gradually and stumbled along a bit to, which was nice. It's no fun when the character just suddenly knows who they need to be. Ethan and Lena are characters that have definitely been given a lot of thought and filled with the right amount of background depth that all great characters share.

As for the movie adaptation, while parts of the story were different or outright changed, I still thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would recommend it if you liked the book.

I really loved this book so I am giving it 4.5 stars and I can't wait to read the rest of the Caster Chronicles.