Review: City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

After their deadly adventures in Idris, Clary, Jace and their many friends have returned to New York. Clary has started training so that she may work as a Shadowhunter, Jace is scarred from his experiences and has become somewhat broody, Luke and Joycelyn are planning their wedding, Alec is on holiday with Magnus and Simon ... Well, Simon Lewis is living it up as a rock star vampire who has two girlfriends and neither knows about the other. Except that readers should probably keep in mind that this is still Simon we are talking about, and his band is as shitty as ever and the girls are Isabelle and Maia. An ancient vampire is taking a keen interest in Simon, people keep trying to kill him and a dead demon baby turns up somewhere along the way. All of which makes this novel amusing, but it really does feel like a slightly farcical made-for-television sequel.

This one was entertaining enough, though the twist at the end was predictable enough--I guess something had to lead in to the final two books of the series. There were a number of references to characters from The Infernal Devices, another Shadowhunters series, which is unsurprising given that the author worked on the final three books in The Mortal Instruments series concurrently with the three books in The Infernal Devices series over the space of about four years. The best thing about this book, though, was how much it made me appreciate Simon as a character in his own right, rather than simply being fodder for Clary.

Recommended to anyone who can't get enough of the Shadowhunter universe. 

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