Clare's writing was beautiful and descriptive, although at times, less could have been more. On occasion the descriptive paragraphs became tiring, even if they were well written. The characters were diverse, complex, intriguing, well developed, and my personal favorite, believable. The world building had a little too much info-dumping for my taste, but at the same time the additions kept my attention and interest. For the most part it kept a good, fast pace, only slowing down here and there for an occasional, somewhat annoying info dump or actual character development. 
 For me, the biggest problem with City of Bones was the predictability. Very few things surprised me, and whenever something happened, it was very easy to foresee everything. Despite this, I was still really addicted to the book and found myself not wanting to put it down despite a few things here and there that annoyed me. 
 I had an extremely difficult time reviewing this book because I was torn in so many different ways. There were plenty of things I found annoying as previously mentioned, but despite that, I could not stop reading it. After a few days of thought about this book and other books I have rated, I feel like this book deserves 3.5 stars. (To be fair, I admit that if I had started reading this when it was first published and I was still a teen, I would have been a lot less nitpicky and would have enjoyed it a lot more. )