** spoiler alert ** 
 I read City of Ashes and City of Glass just straight through over the last two days. I enjoyed it enough, but I was never surprised. The characterization was shallow -- she described what they were wearing with loving detail, but never who they were -- which made it difficult to care what happened to them. For example, little brother Max's death didn't move me at all because he was never given anything to do. He seemed created to die so the reader would understand how high the stakes were. Similarly the twists were predictable but presented as clever which put me off. Sebastian was introduced too late in the storyline, I figured out who he was based on the summary of the book before I started reading.