I don't know what I was expecting when I read this. Everyone has obviously heard the hype and I was looking for a new book series to read (LOTR, Harry Potter and Twilight girl here) and I was trying to decide between this and The Hunger Games. I decided to go with this partly because of the backlash I read about Mockingjay and mostly because I was familiar with Cassandra Clare's work prior to her being a published author. What can I say, I'm a creature of habit and I figured if I loved her fanfiction writings then naturally I was going to love her published works. The hunch was right and I was pleasantly surprised by how involved in the book I got. 
 Yes there are facets of the book which borrow heavily from other stuff (although in fairness, in fantasy that isn't unique to this book as there are really only so many spins you can do on the concept of werewolves, vampires, fairies, magic etc) and it is kinda fun to almost guess who each character is based on (Valentine/Voldemort? Luke/Remus? etc) but I think I probably do that because I am so aware of how Clare wrote those characters in her stories before. The plagiarism rumours persist with her though as a hangover from her fanfiction days, and in fairness she did bring them on herself, but in this case I think that her characters and overall story has enough uniqueness in it to forget that suspicion. 
 The story is simple, Clary and her friend Simon are at a club and Clary follows a boy onto the roof to see him being killed by three people. They turn out to be shadowhunters who are chasing demons and Clary, as a mundane (human) shouldn't be able to see them. It turns out that Clary isn't quite as mundane as initially thought and when her mother goes missing Clary discovers that she is also a shadowhunter and her mother was in hiding from her ex-husband. 
 As Clary goes looking for her mother with the help of Jace (A DT version of Draco for those aware of that work ;)), Alec and Isabelle and a disgruntled Simon who at once wants to be involved, but also doesn't as he harbours not so secret feelings for Clary and can see her getting closer to Jace as they attempt to locate an item that will enable them to find her mother. 
 I was engrossed in the story - were some things obvious? Yeah. I mean there wasn't any massive shocks going on and yeah, there wasn't a lot of nuances in the characters and it isn't a literary masterpiece, but as an introductory book to a series I found it extremely enjoyable. There is enough variety in the type of creatures to be different, the characters are likeable enough that you want it all to work out for them and there's enough questions about what will happen that you can't be too disappointed when some stuff goes down near the end. 
 All in all, I think I made the right choice with going with this and if the rest of the series is as enjoyable as the start then I'm not going to have any massive complaints.