See full review for City of Bones at: http://toomanybooksnotenoughshelves.w... 
 Originally read in December 2012. Reread again in November 2013 because I bought the box set of the first five and I'm preparing for book 6 later on this year...so forgive me if I'm a little hazy on some of the details. 
 Clarissa Fray - Clary for short - is celebrating her birthday when she sees something that she shouldn't see; a vampire being killed by a trio of teenagers. Only she doesn't know the man being killed is a vampire, she thinks he's just a regular guy. But the thing is, Clary isn't supposed to see the teenagers at all. They're glamoured. 
 While she's trying to figure out who those teens were and why the blonde haired boy with an attitude is calling her a mundane, the apartment she lives in with her mother gets broken into and her mother is taken. When she arrives, the place is in ruins and her mother is gone, but the apartment isn't empty. Something is still lurking and attacks her. The blonde boy comes in and saves her and takes her back to the Institute - a sort of home base for what the boy and his friends are.