Zoe N. reviewed on + 20 more book reviews
I had heard so many great reviews about Cassandra Clare's City of Bones that I felt I just had to read it. Sadly, however, this book failed to meet my expectations by a longshot. There were so many errors in the writing, plot, and characterization!It seems like City of Bones is a book you either love or hate, and I seem to be one of the few people who didn't enjoy it very much. Actually, scratch that, I was one of the people who didn't enjoy it at all.My reaction after finishing it was probably something like this:
One of the reasons I hated strongly disliked City of Bones was because of the stereotypical and underdeveloped characters. I never felt any emotional connection to any of Clare's characters whatsoever - in fact most of the characters (cough * Clary * cough) seemed quite annoying and self-centered. Most of the supporting characters not only felt underdeveloped but stereotypical as well. (And our villian, Valentine, does not even come across to me as the least bit frightening!) My main concern, however, was the weak writing, uncreative plot, and lack of editing. Cassandra Clare does not have "natural eloquence." Besides the fact that the entire story is written in short, choppy sentences with a limited vocabulary, Clare uses A LOT of unnecessary similes that don't even make since OR contribute to the plot in any way. And the lack of editing...UGH! Honestly, I'm not even sure this book was edited. It constantly jumps from 1st to 3rd person narration-wise, has misspelled words, unnecessary scenes...the list could go on and on! It's actually almost depressing how many errors there are in terms of editing. The lack of originality in the plot also bugged me. It is quite obvious that Clare borrowed some ideas from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. There are so many comparisons - both character-wise and plot-wise - that it's almost impossible not to see the connection. This lack of originality bugs me personally because I've already read these books; I don't need to read another worse version of them! Being an author is about being creative; coming up with new, fresh ideas that people will enjoy. Apparently Cassandra Clare doesn't know that! The ending was horribly good. It was written significantly better than the rest of the book, yet I didn't like it. However, I did enjoy how Clare fixed her writing - even if it was for the last 10 pages. Despite this, at the end my reaction was simply: All in all, I think there are some people who will enjoy The City of Bones. I'm just not one of those people. I'd highly recommend it to fans of Twilight.
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