The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

For our August book club we chose "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" by Cassandra Clare, a young adult novel.  A movie adaptation was coming out that very day and this popular book gave much for us to discuss. The story follows a teenage girl, Clary Fray, who is living her very normal life in New York City when she witnesses a murder at a dance club and seems to be the only one who could see either the victim or the murderers.  Properly upset she tries to carry on, only to see the young man who did the killing the next day and realizing no one else can see him.  In the midst of this confusion, her mother is suddenly attacked and disappears.  She comes to realize she can see this young man because she is a part of a special race of humans known as Shadowhunters, they are slightly magical warriors who live in the "mundane" world, protecting "mundanes" aka, regular mortals, from the demon world and other downworlders (werewolves, vampires, fairies, warlocks etc)

The book is action packed, full of interesting twists and turns, fascinating characters and some amazingly well done symbolism.  Part of a series of books that delve into the fantasy world of Shadowhunters, City of Bones is the first in this series by Cassandra Clare.  We were able to discuss some of the various issues facing the characters, and most of our group enjoyed this very modern fantasy tale. In addition we discussed the issue of what content is now being pushed out at our teenagers, and what is appropriate and how we as parents can be aware of the content in the books our kids are reading or asked to read in class.

So, on that note, a small warning: This book does contain some light profanity and some violent content. It has no strong sexual scenes but does briefly touch on issues such as homosexuality as an accepted norm in society. It is aimed at a 16-18 year old audience but some of the behavior is a lot more violent than your average older teen would actually engage in-but it is not gory or detailed. Likely most people ages 13 and up would be fine with the series.

The movie is PG-13 rated and does take liberties to adapt from the book. As often is the case, many will say the book is better but as one who has seen and read the books I think the adaptation is pretty good, made some clever and interesting adjustments going into making the sequels and the filming and acting is very good. Artistically it's a beautiful movie as well.

Overall we enjoyed this book and being introduced to this magical world created by Cassandra Clare.  Thank you to those who participated, we appreciate that we have a wide variety of genres in our book club!