City of Heavenly Fire, the sixth and final book in The Mortal Instruments series, signifies the end of another era in the world of YA novels. With the teaser question of "who will survive" and the promise author Cassandra Clare had hinted, that 6 familiar names would die, I'm going to be honest, I braced myself for the worst. However, everything turned out pretty happy. So that's nice.
In this book, in order to defeat Valentine's psycho son Sebastian, Clary, Jace and the gang head on down to Edom, a demon realm, all the while fighting off Endarkened (Sebastian's army of demon Shadowhunters) and going through constant angst about the status of their relationships.
Cassie also weaves in storylines about 12-year-olds Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn, who will be the protagonists for her next series, establishing their relationship and their decision to become parabatai. City Of Heavenly Fire also takes place right before the epilogue of Clockwork Princess, so we finally find out how Brother Zachariah turns back into Jem. Also he kept saying "The Carstairs owe the Herondales" and you know that made me cry.
The Final Showdown (you can imagine it, there always is one) ends with less important people dead than I thought there was going to be, but also a surprising twist that actually made me say "oh my GOD" out loud.
As always, Cassie's dialogue is on point. The thing I love most about these books is how funny they are. The characters are all so snarky and sarcastic, throwing out one liners left right and centre, and they get me every time. They feel so real in their interactions with each other, and while their fluffing about with "are we dating? are we boyfriend and girlfriend? are we nothing?" got kind of whiny after a while, these kids are only sixteen and thats what sixteen year olds do.
These books have been a huge part of my life, since they came out right at the conclusion of Harry Potter, so they were with me throughout my high school years. While I hold them very dear, and I love them, I do, the quality has somewhat declined since City of Glass (book three). The series was only initially meant to be a trilogy, after all, and the three extra books sometimes feel like just random additions, or fanfiction or something. That's not to say I don't still enjoy them, though, because I love the world and I love Jace, but really, if he'd been possessed one more time....
Also, since The Infernal Devices trilogy, I've come to realise that apart from Jace, who's my favourite character ever, I care much more about Jem, Will and Tessa than the raggedy collection of characters in the Mortal Instruments. When I finished Clockwork Princess, about six hours after I started it, I cried for another four, probably. At the end of this book, there were no tears and I only really felt moved with extreme emotion when there was any reference to The Infernal Devices. I was just relieved everyone got out reasonably OK. I really do want to read the next series though (parabatai falling in forbidden love? Um, yes), and I think both TMI and TID characters will be mentioned there, so we'll see how I hold up when Lady Midnight comes out.
I'm going to say this definitely isn't the best book in the series and everything was more happily-ever-after than going-out-with-a-bloodbath-and-or-a-bang, but I'm okay with that. After all, these characters have suffered well enough. I still loved this book, and so will fans of the series (who else is going to read it? I mean, it's the last one), and it's the finale we all hoped for, but were convinced we wouldn't get.
It feels weird that I've spent seven years of my life hooked on reading about a series of events that actually only happen across the span of about six months in 2007 and a bunch of characters that have been 16 for that long, but it's been seven years well spent. I'm definitely going to miss them.
★★★★☆
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