By Caitlin Stephens
Staff Writer
The Mortal Instruments was first suggested to me by a younger friend, and I will admit that I was quite reluctant to read it. The first thing I thought was, “Oh God, not another poorly-written, teeny-bopper fantasy book.” After much coercion, I finally agreed to read the first book in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments Series entitled City Of Bones. Within the first chapter, I was hooked. These books are witty, suspenseful, and not at all what I thought they would be.
The Mortal Instruments is praised by numerous critics and by such authors as Stephenie Meyer (the mind behind The Twilight Saga), Christopher Golden, Holly Black, and Libba Bray. So what is it about this series that is causing such a stir?
The series tells the tale of a girl name Clary who stumbles into the hidden world of the Nephilim, or Shadowhunters while out clubbing with her best friend. The Shadow World is steeped in magic, demons, fallen angels, mythical creatures, more than a few dirty little family secrets, and most of all danger at what seems like every turn. Clary soon learns that her father, whom she thought dead since her infancy, is in fact very much alive, and not at all the loving and gentle man she imagines. For Clary, the world she has been living in all her life is not the world she was born to, and she all too soon discovers that she too is destined to become something much more than a Mundane.
