City of Heavenly Fire

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Since Clary and Simon are the main characters, most of the book is narrated by them. This allowed us see Clary’s desperation to get Jace back and her anger and disgust toward her brother. “Clary had always wanted a brother, but instead she ended up with Sebastian. It was like always wanting a puppy and being handed a hellhound.” Through Simon’s narration we got he see his feeling for Izzy grow throughout the book until they finally become a couple. Due to Jace’s absence we got to see Simon take on a more comedic role, especially when we got to get into his head which was one of my favorite elements of the story. It also caused me to start liking Simon’s character much more. I think their helped me identify the theme of the story.

The main theme of the story is people going to extremes to help the ones they love. You can see this in almost all the characters. Clary leaves her friends and family and pretends to be evil in order to try to save Jace from Sebastian. Simon pushed his love for Izzy back so she wouldn’t be ridiculed for loving a vampire, and Izzy didn’t let her parents and mentors disapproval stop her from being with Simon. Alec also went to an extreme to allow him and Magnus to be together forever. However in this case it was the wrong thing to do since he tried to shorten Magnus’s life.

One of the things I’ve noticed in all of Cassandra Clare’s books is she loves writing from her characters head so we no every last thing the character is thinking in a scene. This sometimes causes the scenes to be a little lengthy but I personally don’t mind the extra detail. Cassandra also manages to set the tone of the scene extremely well, and it is usually very tense, funny or romantic. She manages all these tones very well so we can get a mix of everything in every scene. For example in many of the battle scenes in the book she does a great job of keeping the suspense and tension up but she will throw bits and pieces of humor in. My favorite thing about Cassandra Clare’s writing is the world building and mythology that she has created in this series. She is very detailed about every location, weapon, and piece of clothing in her books that it is extremely easily to immerse yourself in her writing.