*Contains a spoiler*

The Mortal Instruments is a series of six books by the talented Cassandra Clare. And as much as I love Cassandra’s style of writing, I absolutely cannot bring myself to like the characters of The Mortal Instruments series. At some point, I even found myself rooting for the bad guys.

Right, let me get to the plot.

There’s this girl named Clary Fray, right? She’s your typical, unrealistic, and gorgeous Mary-Sue character with no flaws or redeeming qualities whatsoever. When her mother goes missing, she seeks help in the mysterious Jace Wayland who introduces her to the Shadow World. The Shadow World is basically a dimension where demons, vampires, werewolves, and faeries coexist. Shadowhunters are the people with angelic blood whose job is to kill the demons that lurk around the streets of New York City. With Jace’s help, Clary realizes that she is a Shadowhunter and uncovers secrets that her mother had kept from her all her life. Interesting plot; however, it lacks character development and it’s extremely hard to sympathize with the annoying characters (with the exception of Clary’s best friend, Simon, of course).

Now I didn’t hate Clary from the start. At first, she seemed like a relatable character who was just trying to fit in (she sneaks into a club with Simon). She loves art, coffee, and even attends a boring poetry recital for the sake of her friend. Then, Jace comes in and she disregards Simon completely, which is like Twilight all over again. Remember Jacob Black? Yeah, me neither. Don’t even get me started on all of the unrequited loves in this series. I can’t even list them all. I lost count after the first twenty pages. Seriously.  

I kind of liked Jace, but after book four, I couldn’t stand him. I loved his sarcasm and funny arrogant personality, but his self-created drama was almost as annoying as Clary was. Although his insecurities were understandable at first, after reading over one thousand pages of this guy’s rants of his dissatisfied love life, I wanted to throw my book at the wall. His obsession with Clary only added onto her cliched goddess persona. Their seemingly cute relationship in book one turns into a train-wreck by book five. And by the end of book six, [SPOILER ALERT] you no longer root for them despite the fact that they finally get together.

All in all, if you’re a fan of fantasy and unoriginal, overplayed cliched characters, The Mortal Instruments is the book series for you.