Review: City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6) by Cassandra Clare
Publisher: Walker Books
Released: May 27th 2014
My Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Find it on Goodreads

Lives will be lost, love sacrificed, and the whole world changed in the sixth and last instalment of the internationally bestselling The Mortal Instruments series.

Erchomai, Sebastian had said. I am coming.

Darkness returns to the Shadowhunter world. As their society falls apart around them, Clary, Jace, Simon and their friends must band together to fight the greatest evil the Nephilim have ever faced: Clary's own brother. Nothing in this world can defeat him - must they journey to another world to find the chance? (find it on Goodreads)

SPOILER REVIEW: this review WILL contains spoilers. Do not read unless you have already read City of Heavenly Fire. Or unless you don't care about being spoiled. You have been warned.

City of Heavenly Fire was a little bit of a disappointment for me. After so much hype, and hints that some main characters might die, it was kind of a cop-out. Most of the deaths were minor or super obvious and eh.
 

First off, was I REALLY supposed to care that people like Jordan and Meliorn died? It was a bit sad Jordan died but we never really got to know him that much and he was such an obvious candidate that I was really prepared for it. Plus his death was just kind of brushed over. No-one really cared that much. And Meliorn. I barely remembered who he was! Plus he was a traitor, was he really supposed to be one of the "big" deaths? I honestly didn't care about him at all. Sebastian's death though. What. I mean, we all knew he had to die. And I wanted something really big and fitting, not Clary using her rune powers AGAIN and them some weird "oh-I'm-not-Sebastian-I'm-Jonathan" transformation, only for him to die anyway. What was the point? To make me feel sorry for him? No. I mean, I get that Sebastian thought Jocelyn was a terrible mother who didn't love him, I get he was a product of experimentation and upbringing and that it wasn't really his fault, it was Valentine and the demon blood blah blah, but I still hated him as a character and I didn't need some weird "oh this is what he would have been like" version to make me sympathise with him. It was unnecessary and odd.

Half the story was also just too unbelievable. The Clave. I mean, how could they be so stupid and inefficient? Did they never learn from their bazillion past mistakes? How could they seriously not come up with a good enough plan to defeat Sebastian and the Endarkened? WHY were people so unwilling to listen! It was just ridiculous. People were dying left right and centre and they were just like "we'll get 'em next time! The Endarkened can be saved, we'll find a cure!" THERE WAS NO CURE. And the whole Robert and Maryse Lightwood issue was never really resolved and was just left hanging. The way Clary and Jace sorted out the heavenly fire problem was way too easy (runes again. Really, they didn't think of that before), and the fact that Magnus's dad, one of the most evil demons ever, was content to let everyone leave the demon world with just one person's immortality and memories was way too convenient. It was even MORE convenient that Simon magically managed to retain some of the memories a super powerful greater demon took from him AND got to stop being the vampire he always hated being. It was too much of a happy ending and honestly, I preferred the ending of the original trilogy.

It wasn't all bad, however. I did really like Emma and Julian, and I'm looking forward to reading The Dark Artifices series, with them as the main characters. It'll be nice to focus on some different characters. I was also really happy that Magnus and Alec got back together and that Magnus started to open up more. I actually really loved Alec in this book too, which was surprising for me because normally he's a meh character for me. But he was really funny and I liked all the things he did, and was willing to do, to help Magnus and his friends, and he just really grew on me. Izzy was of course as wonderful as ever and the whole Lord Montgomery thing was hilarious and Alec walking in on her with Simon...twice! I think I died.

*This paragraph contains Clockwork Princess spoilers*The references to The Infernal Devices series were really nice, and I'm looking forward to Tessa and Jem interacting with Jace and Emma more in TDA. The fact that Jessamine's ghost saved the London Institute was also one of my favourite parts and it was nice to think that maybe Jessamine had found some peace, especially after seeing her in the comic strip at the back on the book (I think this was in the UK and AUS editions?). Speaking of the comic strip though (and here there will be spoilers for Clockwork Princess), I did like seeing Tessa and Jem's wedding but I also had some issues with it. I was one of the few people who didn't like the ending of Clockwork Princess; not because I hated Tessa  for being with Jem or anything stupid like that (Tessa is tied with Izzie for my favourite female character of Cassandra Clare's), but because the whole thing made little sense. In this comic strip, Tessa saw Will's ghost at her wedding to Jem and said something like "someday, we'll all be together" and I was just like, really. Really. Is that so. I am ALL FOR being able to love more than one person and being brave enough to love again when you are an immortal who knows your love will die, but that is going to be one strange and awkward reunion. Maybe it'll be A Very Potter Senior Year Lily Potter/Cedric Diggory kind of afterlife.

Some other comments: book felt too long and could have done with being about 200 pages shorter, I will never feel sorry for Jocelyn no matter how much I'm supposed to, Luke did literally nothing in this book, seeing Will in the comic strip was awesome especially his comments about Jace, the dreams everyone had in the demon world were really interesting , I loved how Jace was responsible for Zachariah's change and the connection between the Herondales and Carstairs, did Jace REALLY bring a condom to demon world hell place Edom even when he was still full of heavenly fire or maybe he just always carries one around but my my wasn't that convenient, Clary and Simon's friendship was just really awesome and I liked how Clary bonded with Emma.

Overall, I didn't love this book, especially for a conclusion to a series, but I didn't hate it, and I will be picking up The Dark Artifices.