I decided to give this book a go because I was told it was really good. Also it won me over with the inside cover that compared the book to Neil Gaiman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I suppose, yeah, one can compare this book to Gaiman's Neverwhere, minus the dry British humor, but it's no where close to the sheer awesomeness of the Sandman Chronicles. 
 In all honesty, I wasn't impressed with the book at first. It's very much like Buffy Season One, which is horridly cheesy and cliche. Basically, in the first few chapters, we meet a whiny teenage girl named Clary who can't stand her over-protective mother, and doesn't even seem to treat her best friend Simon that well either. However that mundane teenage drama angst stuff is interrupted when she coincidentally bumps into some Shadowhunters. Shadowhunters are trained combat warriors who have sworn to defend us Mundanes from the evil Downworlders or any other such demons that try to break into our dimension. Unfortunately Clary's mother is kidnapped, with little to no clues to show her whereabouts so she has to rely on her teenage Shadowhunter friends to help her. And then, falling into the footsteps of Twilight Land, Clary falls in love with Jace, who is this blonde, muscular, demon-killing "heartthrob," that always seems to have his shirt torn off. As the book begins to hurt my brain due to the immense cliche of this romance, matters aren't helped by the fact that Jace is unarguably the most annoying character in the book due to his immense talent of always bringing up his good looks into any conversation while bragging how he can get any girl to fall madly in love with him. Basically, Jace is the biggest walking, talking narcissist you'll ever meet. He puts Dorian Gray to shame. And why oh why Clary falls for him, the world will never know. 
 But anyway, the book doesn't get good until around page 200, which is about when I almost put the book away as waste-of-time garbage. But I thought, Hey! I'm almost halfway done. It's such a quick, easy read, I might as well finish it just to see what happens. And that's about when we find out one of the main characters is gay, and I was like, Whoa! Hey! That's interesting... So I read some more, and it became more and more interesting, and then I discovered Clary and Simon aren't as annoying as I originally thought. Jace is still annoying of course, and I'd like to say annoying to the bitter end, but surprisingly, out of the blue, he redeems himself in the middle of a very dramatic scene near the end, which changes his character from being downright stupidly unbearable to semi-okay. 
 There are barely any surprises in the book except for the homosexual inclusion. Boy oh Boy did I not see that coming! Everything else, however, is sadly predictable... :( Even what happens with Hodge when they find the Mortal Cup, I was like, Really characters? Really!? You didn't see that coming? Come on! But what can you do? I suppose it's better than a sharp stick in the eye. 
 So based on all of these thoughts put together, I'm giving the book a solid three stars, which is probably a lot more than many others would be willing to give. After all, I have a pretty decent sense of humor and am a lover of puns, but even I was rolling my eyes at a few of the corny jokes in the book. But the book shines through in the end as its climactic finale is actually quite heart-pounding. I even am going to read the second one! Yes...I suppose the book caught me. If it's anything like Buffy, whose show only gets better and better as the seasons progress, I think I have something to look forward to. :)