Rgz Salon: Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments, Reviewed by Rene Kirkpatrick

René Kirkpatrick has been a bookseller and book buyer, specializing in children's and teen literature, for many years. She has a degree in elementary education and reads widely across all genres. She is currently a buyer at Third Place Books.

We're honored to have her here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where four of the top kidlit experts clue us in to the best YA novels they've read recently. Here's René!

I just finished up the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare! The books are City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass and are based in both the mundane world (the one most of us live in) and a world around us filled with Shadowhunters, angels, fairies, vampires and werewolves. Our main character, Clary, occupies both of these worlds, often with dire consequences. Clary is a human girl, as far as she knows, with the ability to see and hear those not-quite-human beings that surround her. This ability can be detrimental both to her health and to the health of others. When Clary becomes involved, quite by accident, in a non-human affair, those beings become very interested in the fact of her existence and her life as it was before is shattered.

The books are exciting and romantic, and there is a lot going on in them. Clary is friends with a boy who becomes a vampire, she is in love with a boy who is Shadowhunter, some of their friends are werewolves, and all of this is complicated by the fact that none of these supernaturals are comfortable with each other’s existence, but they are all bound by Clary and her needs.

Ooh…they’re good! You are all so lucky because you have all three to read at once, you won’t have to wait like the rest of us did! Except! I just heard that there is going to be a fourth book! There is more story to tell. I hate to use this tag-line but if you know any Twilight fans, they will devour these books, too.

Ages 14 and up.