Shadowhunters: City of bone - Cassandra Clare

Shadowhunters: Bone City is the first urban fantasy book in author Cassandra Clare's hit series The Mortal Instruments, published in 2007. The novel is set in modern New York City and has been released in multiple languages. , including Bulgarian, Hebrew, Polish, and Japanese.

Summary

Cassandra Clare's Bone City begins an epic quest. Clary Fray is a normal teenager. However, one night, while he is hanging out with his best friend Simon, his world is turned violently upside down. Clary and Simon go out to the Pandemonium, a nightclub.

Clary notices a charming boy with blue hair and green eyes. She watches as he realizes that a beautiful girl approaches and watches as they recognize each other and he follows her to a closet. She watches as the girl and the blue-haired boy walk into the closet together and are followed by two other boys, one of whom has a knife. Clary goes to the closet and witnesses how the three kill the blue-haired boy. He disappears.

She realizes that no one else can see the three teens in the closet and so she claims to have imagined it. Later, she follows one of the boys outside and confronts him. She learns that he is a Shadowhunter, a demon slayer. It cannot be seen by others because it has projected glamor to be invisible. He tells her that the fact that she can see him proves that she is not an ordinary worldly girl.

Clary returns home to find the house destroyed and her mother is gone. She is attacked by a demon in the department. She manages to kill him, but not before he bites her and injects demonic poison into her. Jace finds her and takes her to the Institute, the shadowhunter sanctuary in New York.
He discovers that his mother was a Shadowhunter, and that there is a magic spell on her to make her forget the things about fairies and shadows as she sees them. He also learns that his mother belonged to a group of shadowhunters called The Circle, led by a man named Valentine.

Now Valentine has returned and is searching for the Mortal Cup, which can turn any human who can survive the transformation into a Shadowhunter. Valentine has kidnapped Clary's mother, and it seems that Clary's mother might be the one who hid Valentine's Cup.

Clary and the young shadowhunters, Jace, Alec, and Isabelle embark on a quest to find the Mortal Cup before Valentine can. His worldly friend Simon accompanies, and even helps defeat a greater demon. Simon has been in love with Clary for the past ten years, but Clary has never noticed him. When she and Jace fall in love, she devastates Simon and creates a gap between him and Clary, who had been best friends since early childhood. In her quest to save her mother, Clary discovers that Valentine is truly her father, Jace is truly her brother, Johnathan Christopher, and that her mother's best friend, Luke, is a werewolf.

Clary finds the Mortal Cup and returns with it to the Institute. Hodge, the guardian of the shadowhunters, takes the Cup and summons Valentine, who takes the cup and Jace. Clary and Luke lead the wolf pack in a raid on the former madhouse where Valentine is hiding. Luke and Valentine fight, but Valentine escapes through a portal to the magical land of Idris, where he has hidden the Mortal Cup.

Luke takes Clary's mother to the hospital and faithfully waits by her side as she waits for him to come out of his coma. Clary accepts the fact that the boy she fell in love with is actually her brother, and that her best friend is in love with her. At the end of the novel, this story is far from over. Valentine is still there and the young Shadowhunters must now leave the investigation to the Clave.

Genre: fantasy novel

lary is fifteen years old. While that doesn't automatically make it a young adult book, it's packed with many young adult themes: dating, identity, a changing world view. Also, Clary has to complete her mission without the help of adults. In fact, adults often end up being the bad guys Clary has to fight.

Characters

• Clarissa Adele "Clary" Fairchild: A 15-year-old shadowhunter who ended up living like a worldly woman when her mother ran away from her father. Because she had Sight from a young age, her mother took her to Magnus to cast a spell that would prevent her from seeing the Shadow World. Clary starts seeing them when the spell can't be remade after two years.
• Jonathan "Jace" Wayland: Described as the best Shadowhunter of his generation. He is 17 years old and was adopted by the Lightwood family after his father was killed when he was 10 years old. He is impulsive but loyal to those he loves.
• Simon Lewis: A mundane, Clary's best friend who is in love with her. He is described as having a geeky appearance, with glasses, brown hair and always wearing band shirts.
• Isabelle "Izzy’ "Lightwood: Alec's younger sister, a beautiful shadowhunter with black hair and tall dark brown eyes.
• Alec Lightwood: The eldest son of the Lightwood family and also Jace's parabatai. At first he is cold towards Clary because he developed feelings towards Jace and sees her as a threat.
• Luke Garroway: A Shadowhunter born as Lucian Graymark who grew up on Idris. He was a member of The Circle and also Valentine's parabatai. He became a werewolf.
• Hodge Starkweather: Former Shadowhunter and Guardian of the Institute in New York. He was a member of the Circle and, as punishment, was cursed for never leaving the Institute.
• Valentine Morgenstern: The founder of the Circle and a believer that all undergrounds must die to have a pure world. He is the husband of Jocelyn and has two children, Clary and Jonathan.
• Jocelyn Fray: A Shadowhunter and Clary's mother. She is described with tall, curly red hair and a slim figure.
• Madame Dorothea: A mundane adopted by a witch doctor who lives in the same apartment building as Clary and her mother.
• Magnus Bane: The Great Warlock of Brooklyn who bewitched Clary and then healed Alec when he was attacked by a demon.

Analysis

Throughout the book, many characters struggle to discover their identity. Clary discovers that her world is not so simple and that her life is based on lies. She tries to find out who she is as a person and where she belongs in the Shadow World. At first, she is afraid to give up her old life and clings to her old self, refusing to believe that she is part of a much larger world.

Another person struggling to accept his feelings is Alec. He knows that if he were gay, the community would marginalize him and perhaps even his own family. He tries to hide his affection for Jace using his status as his parabatai as a shield for his feelings.