Just after Christmas 2016, not too long ago, I decided a book buying spree was in order. I had a small amount of Christmas money that needed to be well spent on stocking up books on my TBR, ready for my hefty 2017 reading challenge of 55 books. I put in a few online orders, but I really wanted to get out and about and see what good post-Christmas deals the bookshops had (because supporting physical bookstores is very important!).
So I drove the short distance to the shopping centre slightly larger than the one in my home town, and after a short while, I found a gem! The Mortal Instruments series, all boxed up and wrapped in shiny plastic, the price label staring right at me. £49 reduced to £12! TWELVE POUNDS! I just could not leave it there! I had heard so much about the series, and knew of the Netflix series through my sister, and my interest had been sparked. I knew very little about the series beyond the fact that there was a group of people who hunt demons, but there was something deep inside me that wanted to know more. I’m always slightly skeptical about buying an entire series before knowing if I will like it, but if the worst came, eBay exists!
I didn’t start City of Bones straight away, as there were other books I was desperate to get to. However, once I started it, there was no tearing me away. Oh my gosh, I was hooked!! I hadn’t experienced anything like this since Harry Potter. Of course, I immediately fell for Jace Wayland (and to this day, nothing has changed!), and found the characters and the entire Shadowhunter world to be so rich and well-written.
I whizzed through the first 3 books, and thanks to a few Book-tube videos and Goodreads, I found out about The Infernal Devices. There are different ways you can read these 2 series (well, series and a trilogy), but those who had followed CassandraClare’s writing from the beginning had of course read them in publication order, whichis how I decided was the best way to proceed to get the most out of my experience with the story. So my reading order was as follows…
- City of Bones
- City of Ashes
- City of Glass
- Clockwork Angel
- City of Fallen Angels
- Clockwork Prince
- City of Lost Souls
- Clockwork Princess
- City of Heavenly Fire
I definitely found the story flowed really well reading them this way, and recommend anyone who is thinking of reading them to read in this order. Another reason being City of Heavenly Fire contains some spoilers for The Infernal Devices trilogy!
Around about half way through City of Heavenly Fire, I decided that nothing I would see in the Shadowhunters show on Netflix would ruin the little I had left to read, so I had a few days of binge-watching Series 1 and 2A in preparation for Series 2B being released really soon! The TV show does have it’s differences, but when is an adatation of a book ever really that accurate?!
I took a bit of a break after finishing City of Heavenly Fire. I don’t consider myself much of a fantasy reader anyway, so after 9 books of the high fantasy genre, I wanted a bit of time out before moving on to more of Clare’s writing. I read Thirteen Reasons Why (by this time, the hype around the Netflix show was massive, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about!) and Fangirl, which were both fairly quick reads for me, and allowed me to return to known territory for a bit. But not for long!
By the time I had finished Fangirl, it was May 11th, and book 2 of The Dark Artifices (Clare’s 3rd Shadowhunter series) was being released on May 23rd. Had I started book 1, Lady Midnight, by then? No! I thought the size of City of Heavenly Fire was daunting, but blimey Lady Midnight was a big book! I started on May 11th, and it took me a while to get through, because reality started to catch up with me. Work, friends, family, life in general just took over and I found barely anytime to read. As the release date for Lord of Shadows drew closer, I knew I had to factor in more time for reading. I must have whizzed through the kast half of the book in about 3 days! I didn’t quite manageto finish before Lord of Shadows was released, but I was not far behind.
So this story ends in the present day. I’ve been reading Lord of Shadows for 3 days, and I’m about 150 pages in. It is already just as exciting as Lady Midnight was, and I have heard it will break my heart at the end… I look forward to it!
I hope you enjoyed this short story about how Shadowhunters came to be such a big part of my life, and if you haven’t read them already, I seriously recommended you give them a try! Oh, and maybe watch the Netflix show as well…
Until next time,
Jade 🙂
B O O K M U F F I N 