City of Heavenly Fire

Morgan Fisher

September 16, 2015

2nd

Summer Reading

        Over the summer I read The Mortal Instruments: City of Lost Souls, which is the 5th book in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. In the 5th installment of the series our main protagonists are split up. Clary has gone with Sebastian and Jace as a spy in order to figure out Sebastian’s plan to rule over the Shadow Hunters, which turns out to be the creation of a new Mortal Cup that when drank from puts Shadow Hunters under Sebastian Control. While Simon, Izzy, Alec and Magnus and trying to free Jace from the mind controlling bond Sebastian has put on him. At the end of the book all the protagonists meet up to battle Sebastian and his growing army of dark Shadow Hunters. In the end many of the dark Shadow Hunters are slayed, though Sebastian manages to escape. The bond between Jace and Sebastian has been broken due to Jace being stabbed with a sword made with Heavenly fire, but now the Heavenly fire is now in Jace

        One of the biggest plot points in the story is Jace being under the control of Sebastian. Throughout all the other books Jace has been made out to be our all-powerful hero that could never be defeated. But now we find him on the dark side and at the mercy of Sebastian. Being under Sebastian’s control also made Jace act like Sebastian, which put a huge damper on the humor in the book since Jace is usually the comic relief. Another big plot point in the book was Camille’s influence on Alec. Alec is also a Shadow Hunter like Jace and Clary, but he is dating an immortal warlock named Magnus, who once was in a relationship with Camille who is also immortal. The biggest roadblock in Alec and Magnus’s long standing relationship is that they cannot grow old together since Alec is not immortal. Camille almost manages to trick Alec into taking Magnus’s immortality away, which of course put a huge strain on their relationship. “But if you still love me.” “Of course I do. More than I thought I would. But we’re still done,” Magnus said. “It doesn’t change what you did.”

        Just like many of the other books in the series the main setting is modern day New York City. But through the book we get to follow Clary, Jace and Sebastian to places throughout Europe such as Venice and Italy as they search for materials to create the new Moral Cup. In New York the rest of the gang and searching for a way to separate Jace and Sebastian, by searching through the Library at the New York Institute and eventually raising the all-powerful angel Raziel in order the get the sword Glorious that will separate Jace and Sebastian.

        The two main characters in the book are Clary and Simon. Clary is a Shadow Hunter who has been in a relationship with Jace for the past couple of books and will stop at nothing to free Jace from the control of her brother Sebastian. This is why she chooses to leave her friends and spy on Sebastian. Simon is the second main character in the book. He has been Clary’s best since they were younger and is in a very new relationship with Izzy who is a Shadow Hunter as well, she is also Alec’s younger sister. Clary is the most important character in the book, since we’ve been following her story from being a normal Mundane to a Shadow Hunter since book one. Clary grows a lot as a Shadow Hunter in this book since she has to do her best to save Jace without any of her friend’s direct help. This allows Clary to mature much more personality wise, which I really enjoyed since I’ve always found Clary’s personality silly and childish which made the books somewhat unenjoyable for me. Simon’s character development also steps up in this book. This has to do with the fact that he isn’t being outshined by Jace, since Jace is a humorless zombie throughout the book. Beside Magnus, Simon is the only main character who isn’t a Shadow Hunter. Simon is a Mundane turned Vampire, which is very tough for Simon since Vampires are looked down by most Shadow Hunters. This also leads to Simon and Izzy’s relationship to be disapproved by many. One of the more minor character that stood out in this book is Alec. Alec has always been quiet by nature, but in this book he got to narrate several chapters and we got a more in depth look on his and Magnus’s relationship and Alec’s thoughts and opinions. This once again in probably caused by Jace’s lack of significance in this book.