Yay, Cassandra Clare's second book finally arrived at the library for me. I plowed through it on Friday and was quite happy. I think the writing might have improved, though some of the descriptions of the boys in the book were almost as annoying as Meyer's sparkling vampires. But I liked that we're past the predictable set up part of the first book, and into the action! And man, is there action. No one escapes without injury in this book! I do like Clary as a heroine (though this book seemed to concentrate a bit more on Jace and what was going on with him) and I'm willing to stick with the series till she starts really kicking butt!My biggest beef with the book was the Jace/Clary/Simon love triangle. As I've already complained in my goodreads review, it seems like every "urban fantasy" book I read has this dynamic going on and it drives me batty. The author makes it very obvious to us readers who the heroine is in love with and then wants us to believe that she's so confused and she can't tell the difference between platonic friendship feelings and and ooooh I wanna jump your bones feelings. Please, urban fantasy writers, stop doing this. It makes your characters seem dumb and flaky. And I don't want to ready about dumb, flaky girls. I want to read about girls who are strong and true to themselves. That's the type of character I want the girls in my middle school book club to look up to, to imagine themselves as. So let's start writing book in that vein, ok?
