Going back into a story which has been ‘finished’ was strange so City of Fallen Angels took me the longest to read. This was because I put it down after 3 or 4 chapters, and then didn’t pick it back up for a while. By that I mean I read three other books in that time period. This also meant I forgot a lot of information from those first chapters.
It took a long time to pick up the pace in City of Fallen Angels, which is probably why I put it down. The first half maybe? Is a lot about the relationships between characters and how they have or haven’t evolved since City of Glass. Because of this, there’s very little action within the story as a whole. I think we only see 2 demons in the entirety of the book? Which was different, especially after City of Glass.
I was meant to be revising when I read City of Fallen Angels*, so wasn’t as focused when reading. I didn’t pick up on a lot of the ‘hints’ towards the bigger plotline. In hindsight, the different aspects all slot together at the end really well. I just didn’t manage to slot them together before the big reveal. Seeing as the antagonist was part of the big reveal, this was not good.
One of the aspects I enjoyed most was that we weren’t following Clary as much as the previous books. I found Simon and Isabelle’s storylines to be much more interesting to read. I also loved that we got to explore each individual character, as there was a lot more character depth.
The cliffhanger ending was shocking. I’m going to grab my copy of City of Lost Souls after finishing this review. This was not one of Clare’s best books, but it was entertaining. And that’s why we all read, right?