The City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare
Summary: At the end of the previous book Jace (and the previously thought dead Sebastian) ha vanished and Clary discovers just to where, apparently a bond has been forged between them and let's Sebastian control Jace and is using him to help him do what their father could not. Clary charges after them while their friends left behind have their own problems to deal with and once again it seems as if the fate of the world lies partially in their hands.
The Good: The parts that revolved around the side characters (Simon, Magus, etc) I found to be a lot more interesting and there was some nice world-building in the story as well. I really do like the world Clare has created and it's surprisingly detailed, I just wish that the story had more of a chance to explore it. The most interesting side detail in there is that I *think* there was actually a cameo from a rather important character from The Infernal Devices in there (not Tessa although she's mentioned in here again, not by name and I don't consider this a spoiler since she did appear, again unnamed, for a scene way back in City of Glass). I'm mentioning this since I'm rather impressed, if I'm right then it was a very subtle and clever cameo (a quick search on tumblr says that the rest of the fandom thinks it was a cameo but is split over who it was) and I really am curious to see what happens in the next book because of those little details and the side characters.
The Bad: Ehhhhh, as I mentioned earlier, I feel like I've outgrown a these books and a lot of it has to do with the fact that the characters haven't aged much over the years so sure I used to connect to fellow 16 year olds rather easily, these days not so much. I also feel like this book had the opposite problem of Clockwork Prince, while that story didn't have a real climax in it (and I thought needed a bit more tension) this one tried to pull an end-game climax and it was hard to take it seriously since guys, there's one more book, even if the characters succeed with their crazy, evil schemes it's clear they won't completely win. I feel like this one could've used a smaller climax to it (and then sent some of the extra over to CP?) although this is the awkward problem that most trilogies have so I wasn't really expecting otherwise.
So, I'll be reading the last book whenever it comes out and I'll see the first movie when it comes out next August. The first trailer is out and it looks about how I expected it so so far so good. I'm just hoping that next time I won't end up reading the two books back to back, I just prefer not to read works by the same author/same series back to back and didn't have a choice this time around with all the people who had a hold on the book after me.
