City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1), by Cassandra Clare

Well, thanks to my poll voters for encouraging me to select City of Bones next!  I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction, because this was a highly satisfying read.  I had started it once and got sucked away by a new release in the middle, so I actually started the whole thing over and reread the first half to make sure I understood what was going on.  And I'm glad I did, because there are a lot of characters and settings in this book and if I had just picked up where I had left off, I would've been confused.  Anyway, for anyone that hasn't read this series yet, it's about some stuff and then some other stuff and some people, blah, blah, blah...  Just kidding!  Okay, it's about a girl named Clary whose sense of curiosity (or perhaps even fate) leads her to see a very strange scene in a nightclub one night while out with her friend.  She doesn't know at the time that this one small event is the catalyst to change her whole life, because what she observes is something no human should be able to see...  Slowly the pieces of the puzzle that is Clary's past start to come into view and readers are able to see all the connections forming throughout this book.  A few of these things seem obvious before they're revealed, but for the most part, there are a lot of things to try and figure out in City of Bones.  I really liked that aspect of this book and it kept me turning the pages (or tapping the screen technically lol, but that verbage doesn't have the same ring to it).  Clary is actually an integral piece to the puzzle herself, but it takes a long time to figure out why.  In the meantime she manages to get herself invited to a lot of dangerous situations which offer a lot of action to read about and kept the pace strong.  I bought the second book too, so I'm ready to continue this tale sometime, but I'm reading Anna and the French Kiss now (thanks to the advice of my poll participants as well) so I'm not sure when I'll get around to City of Ashes.  So, thanks for helping me organize some of my TBR books everyone, you didn't let me down!  All-in-all, I would recommend City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare for any fans of action, romance, paranormal, fight scenes, coming-of-age stories and other world/alternate reality-type books.

Favorite things:  Cassandra Clare's beautifully descriptive writing that gave this book so much personality, the fully developed characters that made me actually root for them and care about them, the twists and turns that kept me tapping the screen (lol I'm going to see if this can replace "turning the pages"), the intense action scenes that made me gasp out loud, the funny moments that made me laugh out loud (sorry for waking you up hubby) and the fact that there are more books to this series so I can keep enjoying all these things some more!

Criticisms:  the direction to plot took near the end wasn't where I wanted it to go and I hope I find out something different later in the series, some of the things in the book were too predictable and it made some of the characters seem a little dumb for not figuring it out sooner (haha) and then it was also a little long which was what prevented me from finishing it the first time, so I think it could've been trimmed down by 50 pages or so and it would've been perfect.  However, none of these things were enough to drop this book a point in my rating so...

Overall:  5 out of 5 stars!  I'm really looking forward to more from Cassandra Clare!  :)