City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes is the second book in The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. And the first time I read it was a few years back but, as I posted in my review of City of Bones, I had to do a re-read of the first three books because I didn't know there were more to the series (now, or at least by the end of May, there will be six books in the series). And yes I did like them enough to read them a second time around.

I think I like the series because everyone is so flawed. Jace is kind of an ass but in the vein of the great annoying characters in the world. (Like in real life the annoying conceited hot guy is mostly on your hate list...like cute enough to maybe make out with but you'd never want to date him because he's an ass. But it's okay to want to date him in fiction. I mean there are countless of asshat characters that make no sense for me me to like but I do...Spike from Buffy, Draco from Harry Potter, etc.) So I like Jace in the book and cheer for a relationship to work out but I'd definitely avoid him in real life and go with Simon.

I liked how Simon and Clary both kind of came into their own in this book. It took a major change for Simon to become a more three dimensional character while Clary just kind of grew into her skills. It was nice to see because I get sick of it when character's don't try to defend themselves (I'm looking at you Stephanie Plum in Janet Evanovich's series...I've read fifteen books and Stephanie still hasn't learned a damn thing).

And yes there are similarities to Harry Potter even in this second book of the series (the Inquisitor is basically Umbridge only in gray, not pink) but that was the biggest one I noticed this time around.

The only reason I don't think I enjoyed this as much as the first time around is because I'm ready to get past the books I've already read and get into the new ones!