While City of Ashes was better than the previous book in the series, it still had a lot of the same problems that I struggled with in the first book. 
 Clare's descriptions, while they can be informative and beautiful, also drown the book a bit with unnecessary detail that gets boring over time. My biggest beef with the series still remains to be the predictability. I was not surprised by anything that happened, and had guessed a lot of the things that would happen as early as the previous book. 
 Despite these problems I was still highly interested and didn't want to put the book down. While City of Ashes had it's pitfalls, I still enjoyed it and felt like it was a bit better than City of Bones. I rate this installment at 3.75 stars.