The Mortal Instruments series follows a girl, Clary, journey into a world that was right under her nose her whole life. She soon realizes that she is Shadowhunter, someone who kills demons who enter the human realm, and that she is the daughter of a traitor. Clary is thrown into this world with her newfound Shadowhunter friends Alec and Isabelle and her newly discovered brother. They soon find out that her father is still alive and is planning more trouble. In the third book, author Cassandra Clare creates a world that the reader can’t help but hold on to every word.
By weaving a web of imagery, Clare creates a livid setting with characters that draw the reader in. “She mounted the steps and took hold of the heavy door knocker. It was shaped like a pair of angel’s winds, and when she let it fall, she could hear the sound echoing like the tolling of a huge bell.” When I read this part, I saw the door tower above her with the knocker and heard the echoes from the knock. Clare also draws characters that the reader can see come alive on the page. She writes about in new character with “the same pale skin, the same tumbling hair, and eyes so dark, the pupils seemed to meld with the iris. The same high cheekbones and deep-set, shadowed eyes fringed with long lashes,” just like the dark prince. Clary dreamed about. Cassandra Clare knows how much description to give. She allows the reader to fill in what she leaves out to get the reader more involved. They can create the character in their mind by people they know and with the outline Clare gives them.
Cassandra also does a great job of making creature we already are familiar with different enough to be interesting still. In her books, she writes about vampires, werewolves, and demons. She has a whole array of demons that are unlike others I have read about. She writes about a demon that looks like a centipede with a stinger on the end of its long body. It sends a chill down the readers spine. The vampires have thin points “like needles” teeth that snap into place when they smell blood, which make them original from other vampires in literature.
I have been completely engrossed in this series since I started it for the October Reading Challenge. While reading, I have fallen into action packed books with amazing imagery that makes the setting and characters jump off the page. Cassandra Clare writes with small twists of originality that has kept me interested and keeps pulling me back to read more.
Write On 