City of Glass is the third installment in The Mortal Instruments series and brings the story to a stunning conclusion. Although there are more books in this series, Clare is writing them in groups of three so that the arc of the story is finished in every third book. In City of Glass, we finally learn what's going to happen in the forbidden romance between Clary and Jace who believe that they are siblings and children of the villain of the piece, Valentine, a Shadowhunter who is looking for the three instruments—the mortal cup, the mortal sword and the mortal glass. He believes that having these three instruments will allow him to summon the angel Raziel who will then do his bidding, making him all-powerf ul in the land of Shadowhunters.
In this book, we learn a lot about Clary and Jace's origins, which are fascinating. It turns out that they are both the products of Valentine's experiments conducted on their mothers when they were in the womb. In the name of experimentation, Valentine fed his wife, Jocelyn, demon blood when she was pregnant with the first child, a boy named Sebastian. Later, he fed her angel blood, not knowing that she was pregnant. The result was Clary, a Shadowhunter girl with special powers. Valentine also fed another woman who was pregnant angel blood and the result was Jace who also has special powers. So we finally learn that Clary and Jace are not brother and sister and are free to express their feelings for each other.
However, things are not yet at an end because Valentine manages to get hold of the three mortal instruments and summons the angel. However, by some clever rune-writing on Clary's part, she is able to influence the outcome of the angel's presence. Eventually, Shadowhunters and Downworlders, who were at odds with each other, decide to come together and live peacefully, which is necessary if they are going to defeat enemies like Valentine in the future.
This is really satisfying end to the trilogy and the different threads of the story are brought together perfectly. Not only do we have two amazing protagonists with special powers that they are developing, we also see their romance achieve fruition. The world of The Mortal Instruments has become more complex and a lot more characters have been added, but Clare has the talent of making them all sympathetic. Even when the character is not completely moral, like Sebastian, the Shadowhunter born of demon blood, we still feel his pain and his feeling of being torn between doing the right thing and the wrong.
Cassandra Clare's real name is Judith Rumelt and she was born in Iran to American parents. Her family traveled a lot when she was young, so she lived in France, England and Switzerland before the age of ten. Since they were never in one place for too long, young Judith turned to books and always carried one under her arm. As an adult, she worked for various tabloids, writing celebrity gossip, but in 2006, she started writing fiction full time and playfully jokes that she never wants to write about Paris Hilton again. She is friends with Holly Black, also a fantasy writer and the two often refer to characters in each others' books within their own work.
"The City of Glass was spectacular! I wish I could rate it more stars! I just love that they introduced more characters! And that they spent more time in Idris! Something that I wish they could improve on was more point of views of Simon! I absolutely adore him! What would be the series without him? I just love the fact that Simon is more included in the book rather than the first or second! Also, I would like to know more about Alec and Magnus Bane relationship! They didn't talk much about them, I just hope they add in a Magnus or Alec point of view! Overall, I truly enjoy reading this book! And I am looking forward to continue reading this series."
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Hipster_kat (5 out of 5 stars)