Reviews with content warning for Incest - City of Ashes

Reviews tagging 'Incest'

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

101 reviews

toastyghosty13's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I enjoyed the 1st book of this series a lot more than this installment. I found Clary to be incredibly annoying and her antics made it difficult to get through. She was constantly rushing into danger without thinking despite having more experience as a shadow hunter since the 1st book, and was constantly putting others in danger because she would rush into situations without a second thought.

I also found the dynamic between her and

Spoiler

Jace to be absolutely horrific. Why this type of relationship (where they are in love with each other and then find out they are long lost siblings) was included as a major plot point of Clary’s romantic interests is a complete mystery to me. It offers no value other than to make Jace a forbidden love in the ABSOLUTE WORST WAY POSSIBLE. It’s gross, especially when they have to kiss in front of the Seelie Queen and the rest of the gang just brushes it off as if it is no big deal, except for Simon who had the only normal reaction of walking away angry.

The spoiler above plus how annoying I find Clary are making it super difficult for me to want to move on to the next book, despite the fact that I am invested and interested in uncovering Valentine’s ultimate goal. I also found this book to be pretty boring for the majority of it, other than the last ~3-4 chapters where all of the action takes place. I will probably get on to the 3rd book at some point in the future since I do at least know that

Spoiler

it is revealed in the 3rd book that Clary and Jace are not actually related

and I want to see more of what Valentine does, plus how everyone plans on stopping him. This book also ended with a pretty good cliff hanger that I want to see resolved.

Although I will be making my way through the next book eventually, I still want to emphasize that the only thing keeping this from a 1 star rating are the lovely secondary characters of Alec, Isabelle, and Magnus Bane. Magnus Bane is a mood and vibe, and I love that for

Spoiler

Alec since he needs any semblance of normal social interactions away from Clary/Jace/only his family

Content Warnings

plantsnbooks_'s review against another edition

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mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.25

if i had a nickel for every time a stranger on the tube had to ask me if i’m okay bc of how disgusted i looked while reading this book, i’d have two nickels. which isn’t a lot. but it’s weird (concerning) that it’s happened twice.

(why is there so much incest/incest vibes help, and i knew that going in. it still shocked me how strong the incest vibes were)

Content Warnings

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Okay, wow. This was a thing. I know Cassandra Clare used to write Harry Potter fanfic in her LiveJournal days (and she used to bully teens on LJ as well), and in her some of her HP fanfics she would write Ron and Ginny as being in a romantic relationship, even though they're siblings. So she obviously has an interest in incest because this whole incest plotline is just a replay of her Ron/Ginny fanfics. I can't stand it, it makes my skin crawl.

Ignoring the incest issue, this book was really boring for about 60% of the way through and then after that point the action started to pick up. When the action picked up I just remember thinking "why should I care about these characters?" Most of the characters, like Alec and Isabell, are one dimensional characters and I have no interest in them.

Isn't Magnus a 1,000 year old Warlock? Why is he dating a 17 year old Alec? Why is he interested in dating a teen, he's old as hell. He's way too old to be dating Alec, that's worst than some Bella and Edward, Twilight shit.

I might continue this series because I recently found 20 Clare books at a thrift store and this series was among the books I found.

Spoiler

I want to see what happens when Jocelynn wakes up and I want to know what it means now that Simon can go into the light despite being a Vampire, after he drank Jace's blood.

I don't know if it's worth it to read the rest of the series to find out or if it would be better to just look up spoilers.

This book was a miss for me.

I'm giving it 2.5 (rounded up to 3) stars out of 5 stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Content Warnings

gen_wolfhailstorm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The Details:
Narrated by Natalie Moore
Unabridged

Despite going pretty much straight into the sequel, the inital scene threw me off and had me discombobulated on how much time had passed

Spoiler

(especially with how Jace was acting and the relationship developing with Simon and Clary)

Simon has been through shit - to me, he is the star of the show and I want everything good for him. Honestly, I just want to protect him with everything I have. I hope the situations he's been through doesn't fester over this endless time and create a villan out of him.

The angst was real in this installment. Particularly with the trio of Clary, Jace and Simon and now Mia? I feel really weird about certain dynamics continue to unfold and I really hope the direction of romance changes cause... eww.

Spoiler

I'm really hoping that it turns out Jace and Clary aren't siblings because that forced kiss in the fae court wasn't really forced and that made me feel icky... and also, poor Simon, my heart hurts for him!!

I still really enjoyed City of Ashes and found it incredibly high action, great entertainment and fast paced, but I definitely would say I preferred City of Bones just that little bit more.

Looking forward to seeing how I feel about book 3.

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breedawnwriter's review

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Cassandra Clare has done it again. I literally could NOT put this book down—I read it in like two days.

The tension between Jace and Clary in this book was entirely unhinged, and I loved every single freaking moment of it.

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chrstnlvly's review against another edition

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adventurous funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Mundane humans create distinctions between themselves, distinctions that seem ridiculous to any Shadowhunter. Their distinctions are based on race, religion, national identity, any of a dozen minor and irrelevant markers. To mundanes these seem logical, for though mundanes cannot see, understand, or acknowledge the demon worlds, still somewhere buried in their ancient memories, they know that there are those that walk this earth that are other. That do not belong, that mean only harm and destruction. Since the demon threat is invisible to mundanes, they must assign the threat to others of their own kind. They place the face of their enemy onto the face of their neighbor, and thus are generations of misery assured.

To be honest, not much really happened in this book.

Spoiler

Although Simon turned into a vampire, we saw Robert and Maryse, and there was a battle between the Shadowhunters and Valentine, the plot felt lacking.

In my opinion, the events of City of Ashes could have easily been combined with either City of Bones or City of Glass. I don't believe there was enough substance to justify an entire book dedicated to these events.

I did find City of Ashes to be funnier than City of Bones, but Clary's character was quite irritating!

Spoiler

And yes, the incest thing bothered me more in this book because of Clary.

Content Warnings

as610's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

slipp99's review against another edition

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emotional funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Wtf was all that incest for 🤢

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lenarthoe's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

muhcayluh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

to be entirely honest? did not really enjoy this book all that much. there were a lot of funny scenes and dialogue moments, but overall, a few things kept me from being able to actually like it.

1) a lot of the characters are just? flat out unlikeable or boring to me at this point in the series? i find simon incredibly annoying to be completely honest, cannot stand clary— one of the only characters i like at all right now is magnus lmao.

2) the plot is confusing to follow at points because there are so many pov shifts without much indication as to when they're happening.

3) cannot get past the fact that clary and jace think they're siblings and are still in love with each other. i get that cc is probably attempting to make some 'oh but they're soulmates' kinda point, but it's just not flying for me. and to be honest, it just makes me really uncomfortable.

there were a few moments i enjoyed- i liked watching alec start to have more of a personality and be his own individual person (even if the fearless rune scene was a little?? weird imo?? but). and i love the development of his relationship with magnus, and while the plot is confusing to follow at points, it is still good? idk. mixed review of it. i think i'm gonna take a break from this series before reading city of glass lmao.

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