‘The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes’ Review

‘City of Ashes’ is the second book in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. The story follows fifteen-year-old Clary Fray as she is thrown into a world of Demons and Downworlders. Clary is a Shadowhunter, a race of half human, half angel, people whose sole purpose is to protect the mundane world from the threats of these creatures. There’s just one problem she doesn’t know she is one. ‘City Of Ashes’ picks up immediately after the last book ended. As this is the second book in the series there isn’t much I can say without getting into spoilers, but if you like the supernatural and young adult fiction then I would highly recommend reading ‘City of Bones’ and ‘City of Ashes’ and then coming back and finishing this review.

SPOILER WARNING!!!

In my last review of this series, I didn’t mention the setting and I feel like I should mention it now before I get into the story. By placing the series in New York it adds so much tension to any battle scene as there are always civilians nearby. Not to mention it is a great place to hide a secret world due to all of the abandoned buildings and underground tunnels. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see Idris in this book, but I’m guessing the City of Glass, to which the next book is titled after is referencing this.

The story opens on our antagonist, Valentine and a young Warlock, named Elias summoning the demon Agramon. At first, it seems as if this Greater Demon if being summoned to aid Valentine as a kind of hired muscle. This was not the case, however, as it quickly becomes apparent darker forces and greater plans are at work. I was also expecting Elias to be set up as a more prominent character in the series. Magnus Bane is another warlock who helps our protagonist so I thought it would be interesting to see two warlocks fight but unfortunately, Elias died in the first chapter.

It is only later that we discover what Valentine’s plan truly is, something we did not discover in the first novel. We knew that he wanted Shadowhunters to be the only race on the earth as they are ‘purer, reflecting a Nazi ideology. He plans on doing this by using the mortal instruments, specifically the cup and the sword, to summon an army of demons to kill everyone and then command them to kill themselves. In the book this was called the ‘infernal conversion’ and I’m wondering if that is related to one of Clare’s other series, ‘The Infernal Devices’. I am going to be reading her books in publication order, which means after the next book I am going to start the first book in that series so we’ll have to wait and find out.

Within the first few pages of ‘City of Ashes’, we are already introduced to a huge number of new characters. The first character we are introduced to is Maryse Lightwood. Maryse is Isabelle and Alec’s mother. She was mentioned in the previous book as she was also a member of The Circle along with Clary’s mother and father. She appears to take control of The Institute after Hodge fled in the last novel. Maryse at first seems like an evil character, throwing Jace out of The Institute, seemingly for no reason, however, it is later revealed she is doing it to protect him from The Clave who want to play him for Valentine’s resurgence. Maryse also seems to have a strange relationship with Magnus. When talking about his contracts, Clary says ‘his eyes seemed to linger on Marys when he said that.’ This was only mentioned once so I can only theorise that maybe it links with Alec’s relationship with Magnus, a relationship that was also further explored in this book. As well as Maryse we are also introduced to Alec and Isabelle’s brother, Max. Max is a younger Shadowhunter who is more interested in books that Shadowhunting. He was only a small character in this book and was really only there for plot convenience so the others didn’t have to fetch things and convey messages between each other. They just sent Max out when they needed something.

Maryse more specifically wants to protect him from The Inquisitor, another new character and a member of The Clave. It is the Inquisitor's job to wield The Mortal Sword. I think it’s fair to assume that I was not alone in disliking her character, in fact at first I thought she might be working for Valentine as a spy, but this wasn’t the case. She reminded me of Dolores Umbridge from ‘Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix’ as she wanted to scape goat Jace in lace of Valentine. The whole book was reminiscent of the fifth Harry Potter book in fact, with Jace not feeling as though he can trust anybody, being ostracised from his friends and having adults in power blaming him. The Inquisitor does gain some redemption at the end but only because she apologised for practically causing Valentine’s plans. Ultimately I was glad she died at the end.

One new character that I did like was Maia. Maia is first introduced in The Hunter’s Moon, a werewolf bar frequented by members of Luke’s wolf pack. Maia is a recently turned lycanthrope and a member of Luke’s pack. Immediately we are told all about her backstory. Her ex-boyfriend, Jordan, bit her, turning her into a wolf. Although we don’t see him in this novel I have a feeling he is going to show up again in later instalments. She comments a lot on how Jace reminds her of him which may be foreshadowing future abuse from Jace toward people he cares for in the future. As soon as we found out that Valentine needed Downworlder blood for the infernal convergence I knew that Maia and Simon were going to be taken. Chapter fifteen, where they take Maia was the most suspenseful chapter I have read in a book for a long time and I was so mad at Valentine at that moment but luckily no-one died. Clare did a great job and making me feel for a new character in less than a hundred pages.

One of the themes of the series is abuse. Jace symbolises the repercussions of an abusive family with his secretive personality and refusal to tell someone when something is wrong. Maia symbolises the opposite as she feels weak and useless. It was her brother, Daniel, who abused her. Maia tells us that ‘lit the wings of butterflies on fire’ for fun. Although Daniel is dead, Maia describes seeing him when confronted by Agramon towards the end of the book. In the third part of the book, after Maia was attacked by a demon, Jace tells her to ‘go cry in another room […] we certainly don’t need you crying in another room to us. This moment, in particular, made me dislike Jace. I feel as though Maia has become my favourite character in the series, even beating our protagonist, Clary.

The reason she sees Daniel when she meets Agramon, the greater demon Valentine summoned to do his bidding, towards the end of the novel is because Agramon is the demon of fear. This reminded me heavily of Koschei, from the ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ series by Sarah J. Maas who also kills his enemy’s by making them see their worst fears. In this book we only see two of the characters worst fears, Maia’s being her brother, and Jace’s, who sees Clary needing him. 

This stems from the sexual attraction he feels towards her. Immediately at the start of the book, this becomes apparent. Clare writes, ‘Clary. The pain came again, stronger. He pushed it down.’ I don’t know how I feel about this as I am still unsure if they really are related. Clare has done a fantastic job and confusing the reader with some facts and some lies. I still stand by my theory, however, that a third person is going to appear to break the love triangle that is emerging between Jace, Clary and Simon. By the end of this novel, we already see this triangle breaking down as Simon only wants Clary to be a friend and Jace says they can’t see each other, even though he still has a feeling.

Part of what makes it so confusing whether or Jace and Clary are really brother and Sister comes from the fact that different characters comment on how they do and don’t look alike. For example. At the end of the last book, Clary says Jace doesn’t look like he, however, when Maryse enters the story she says they do look alike and that he looks more like Valentine that Clary does. It is comments like these that make it difficult to theorise whether or not they are related.  On top of this, Jace heavily refuses to accept any relation to Valentine. He shouts ‘That’s not my name,’ at the Inquisitor after she calls him Jonathon Morgenstern instead of Jace Wayland. Personally, I don’t think they are as there were some odd encounters throughout the novel that wasn't really explained.

The first instance of this occurs half way through the novel. After Jace returns to The Institute he encounters The Inquisitor who throws Jace in the prison underneath the Silent City as punishment for being talking back and shouting at her. Without retelling the plot, this is when Valentine steals the sword and kills all of the Silent Brothers in his wake. The Clave hears about this and sends Shadowhunters to protect the city. In the meantime, Clary and the others have already broken Jace out and Clary sees a woman with white hair, who is later revealed to be a friend of Clary’s mother named Madeline. I am theorising that this is maybe Jace’s real mother, although we do not know much about her character yet other than that she can cure Clary’s mother, who was again absent for the majority of this novel.

The second event is towards the end of the book when The Inquisitor is dying. She whispers something in Jace’s ear that we don’t get to hear. This maybe the truth about his family. Previously in the book, we find out that The Inquisitor had a son named Stephen who become=e Valentines second in command after Luke was bitten by the werewolf. Luke tells Clary, ‘He was absolutely in thrall to Valentine. Went everywhere trailing after him like a shadow,’ maybe even remaining loyal after his apparent death. Stephen could very easily be Jace’s real father. The Inquisitor is described to have the same hair colour and eye colour as Jace so there is no reason why Stephen couldn’t either. Stephen also sound similar in personality to Valentine, being abusive and obsessed with his pure race ideology. Hopefully, we will be given more information on him in later books to confirm or deny this theory. Luke also tells Clary that ‘The Herondales [Stephens’s family name] run the London Institute.’ I know that The Infernal Devices is set in London so maybe we will get some more information in that series as well.

It was great to see Raphael return as well as more details on the vampires in this book. In my review for ‘City of Bones, ’ I theorised that Raphael was going to be a villain in this story and I couldn’t have been more wrong. At first, we see him cooperating with the Shadowhunters when Valentine starts collecting Downworlder blood for the infernal convergence. He later saves Simon from a vampire attack later in the book and helps him ‘survive’. Raphael really turned into a character I wasn’t expecting and I look forward to seeing him again in the future. We also hear the oath Jace took in the last book mentioned again when Jace threatens Raphael. Raphael tells Jace he can’t harm him because of the deal they made, which is how I theorised.

Speaking of Simon, his character had a great story line in ‘City of Ashes’. The story begins and it seems as if he has gone back to a normal life. At first, it seemed as if he had some level of PTSD from his encounter with the vampires in ‘City of Bones’ as when Clary changes the channel on the T.V to Dracula Clare writes, ‘His laughter broke abruptly. Clary looked up in surprise and saw him staring blankly at the T.V.’ It was later revealed, however, that he was experiencing some of the symptoms of a vampire after biting Raphael and consuming some of his blood. Although this would have faded over time he was convinced he was changing into a Downworlder.

Instead of waiting, however, Simon decides to take it into his own hands, confronting the vampires in Hotel Dumort. He is met by a vicious attack which kills him and his body is brought to The Institute by Raphael. Clary has the option to save him by turning him into a vampire which she obviously agrees to. The ritual to bring a vampire back to life was much gorier and a lot less simple than simple biting a person. Instead, they must burry Simons body and let him dig his own way out where he will immediately be hungry for any blood nearby. This scene was great at creating suspense. I knew Simon eventually became a vampire as he was changing in the film, but I was not expecting it to happen in such a horrific way. That being said Simon never drinks human blood to feed his own hunger, the only time he does do it is toward the end of the book when he is dying and Jace offers him some of his blood to save his life.

Simon, however, did take a slightly darker turn in that he was trying to force himself on Clary. He never tries anything sexual because at his core Simon is still a nice guy but he starts calling Clary his girlfriend without her consent and kisses her seemingly out of nowhere. I could not understand his actions towards Clary for most of the story other than that they were springing from a jealousy of Jace and a fear that he might be turning into a vampire. I have seen authors do this before, where they deliberately make a character meaner so the love triangle is less of an issue for the protagonist, for example, Gale in ‘The Hunger Games’ and Chaol in ‘Throne of Glass’.

After Simon’s actions towards Clary in this book, they are no longer my number one choice for who Clary should end up with. Instead, we’re starting to see a ship emerging between Simon and Maia. I love this ship and it’s really interesting as Simon is now a vampire and Maia is a werewolf, whose races are sworn, enemies. They are both recently turned as well so there is no age gap between them and they are both still trying to adjust to Downworlder life. Maia, however, is not so quick to accept Simon calling him ‘a monster, a blood sucking leech.’ This is because she has a history with vampires as, when she was first turned, she and her friends were attacked by vamps and one of them was torn in half. Maia later apologises, however, and I feel like she does have feelings for Simon given how she asked Clary if they were together. At the end of the book, however, Clary asks Simon how he feels about Maia to which he replies, ‘I like her, but not the way you mean.’ Hopefully, we’ll get to see more of them together in later books as they are probably my OTP at the moment.

A final point to make about Simon is that it seems to look like he is not an ordinary vampire as by the end of the book he can walk around in daylight. I have a feeling this has something to do with him drinking Jace’s Nephilim blood. Maybe it imbued him with some extra powers or something? It seems as if this is going to be explored further in later books.

It is suggested in this book that Jace has been experimented on, like Clary. Clary has the strange ability to create runes by thinking about what they do. Jace seemingly has the ability to jump really high and survive long falls. Jace says to Isabelle, ‘Maybe I have powers I don’t even know about because I’ve never tested them. My guess is that he was experimented on as a child with angel blood. This would also explain his appearance in the book which is often described as angelic. Valentine even says to Jace, when he first comes to see him on the boat, that, ‘The blood of the angel runs in your veins.’ I still think Stephen is his father and that he was experimenting on his children like Valentine was, mixing angel blood into their bodies.

Speaking of Clary and her ability to create marks from nothing, this ability first surfaces in a dream. She imagines she sees her mother on the beach who gives her a mark for protection. This Rune was later revealed to be the mark of Cain, a biblical symbol given to the first murderer. In the Bible, Cain killed his brother Able and I’m wondering if maybe this mark is foreshadowing a similar event, Clary killing Jace. Again only time will tell but this rule was something that was not given much explanation in this novel.

That being said there were elements of this book which I did not like. Firstly, some of the things surrounding Alec. First of all, at the beginning of the novel, Jace points out what ‘looks like a bite mark’ on Alec’s neck after he mentions running into vampires. This, however, never comes up again in the book at all. I do not understand why this part of the conversation was even in it as Alec does not display any of the signs of vampirism.

The second thing about Alec that I felt brought the novel down was towards the end of the novel when he kills a demon. In the first book, it is quite a major detail of his character that he has never killed a demon. He is always protecting Jace and Isabelle while they do all of the killings. In this book, however, he seems to do it and the fact that it is his first is not mentioned. The only attention it is given is, ‘Alec had already dispatched the creature with a jabbing blow.’ Considering this was a major aspect of his character I expected it to be a little more exciting when he finally killed a demon.

A final point that I did not like about this book is that Demon Energies were mentioned again. I said in my last review that I did not like the ‘demon motorcycles’ which are able to fly because of ‘demon energies’. To me, this just seems like magic plot convenience for the sake of it and it makes no sense in the context of the world. They were also brought up in this again when Jace uses his demon-cycle to get on Valentine's boat. This is only a small point, however, in an otherwise fantastic book.

In ‘City of Ashes’ it was great to see that we were given more information of Downworlders that were not important in ‘City of Bones’, specifically the Faeries. The Faeries are now my new favourite creatures in this world as they were so mysterious. We are introduced to two major Faerie characters. Firstly, Merliorn, who had had a relationship with Isabelle. This was not too important in this novel, however, he gave us our first glance into the Faerie realm. We also meet the Faerie Queen who agrees to aid the Shadowhunters in fighting against Valentine in return for the person Clary most wants most to kiss her. This is obviously Jace and things quickly get heated as Jace and Clary share a passionate kiss. Even though she does later call it ‘sickening’ it provided some interesting insight into what Clary’s real motivation is.

One of the major themes in the novel is love which excellently explored throughout this whole book. Each character seems to have their own definition of it and I just want to take a moment to discuss this. Firstly The Seelie Queen says, ‘Love made you a liar,’ implying that love causes us to pretend we are someone we are not, either to get the people we want or to push them away. This is clear in Clary who lies about her feelings towards Simon in order to protect herself from her feelings towards Jace. Clary’s definition of love can be seen in chapter eleven. She says to Luke, ‘Love takes your choices away.’ Although this may seem romantic at first, this is symbolic of the oppressed love she feels and receives from Jace. He does not let her have a choice in anything so she does and instead takes them away.

Valentine's definition of love is an interesting one and is something that is brought up more than once throughout the book. At the end of part two he uses patriot love to justify killing Nephilim, ‘It takes a true patriot to dissent, to say he loves his country more than his place in the social order.’ To Valentine love is a choice you make to get what you want, opposing Clary’s view. Valentine seems to then suggest of a difference in perception of love caused by gender, for Jace and his love is a tool to use whereas for Clary love is, in Valentine’s words, ‘ownership.’

To conclude, ‘City of Ashes’ was a great sequel in ‘The Mortal Instruments’ series. With its introduction of amazing new characters and great conveyance of themes surrounding love, family and the nature of good and evil. I’ll be reading the next instalment straight away.

Thanks for reading this far, as always feel free to leave a comment on what you thought of the book as well as any ideas on things you think I should review next time. If you want me to do more reviews like this in the future then let me know down in the comments and be sure to share this post on social media.