What can I say about this book that you don't already expect? It's Cassandra Clare, it's Jace and Clary and Simon and Isabelle and Alec and Magnus (and this new kid Jordan Kyle), it's AMAZING. The plot is masterfully crafted, ripped my heart out at the end (which is an awesomely awful cliffhanger, by the way), and our characters are developed even further. Simon fans will be thrilled he gets much more screen time and narration than he did in previous books. What more needs to be said? 
 Okay, a little bit more. This book is DARK. I didn't make that the buzzword for no reason. Now, if you handled The Hunger Games without any trouble, this will be a cake walk for you, but some of Cassie's fans may be a bit shocked by the imagery in this book. The discussions of the demon servants, their experiments on women and babies, it's all a bit disturbing for your typical teen novel (though I love where these authors are driving the industry by blurring the lines like this!). 
 Because of this, some of Cassie's usual wit and sarcasm are missing. Honestly, if they weren't, I would be concerned. This situation, particularly with Jace, is not an occasion for humor most of the time. Although he tries, bless his heart. Only once did I laugh out loud reading this book, whereas with all of the original three pretty much every page had me rolling and jotting down quotes. But again, if I had something would have been amiss. Clare and her characters are more somber here, more serious, and more riveting. It's not the romping fun romance with a twinge of the strange that the trilogy was, it's a grown-up discussion of good and evil. Okay there's still romance, but even it has taken a serious, long-term kind of turn (ala the werewolves arc - serious baggage there). 
 I have no problem with this whatsoever. I look for dark novels on purpose. It brings so much weight and meaning to a story. But it might disturb the faint of heart. I did not retract points for this, because really I liked it better. And I think Cassie's books are growing with her fan base. As they age and mature, so is this series. It's terrific, really. 
 What I did take off points for are the issues with the writing and/or editing, and the difficulty I had getting into the story in the beginning. I read the original three books much faster than I did this one. I will try to explain why. 
 The plot she is building in this trilogy takes a lot of set up from all sides. Each character's arc feeds into the main plot, and each one had to be established first. I understand all of this, I have that problem with some of my own stories and sometimes it just has to be done. But it was hard to become engrossed at first, not least because I was repeatedly thrown off by the writing itself. WAY too many sentences began with "There was ___." For instance, "It was a brisk night... There was a girl walking... There was a knife..." All of these examples are on one page (page 4, if you're being nitpicky with me). Nevermind that it lacked her usual colorful metaphors and entertaining turn of phrase. 
 Something about this irked me, and it didn't feel like Cassie at all. I just found myself asking, "Can I get an active verb please?" This is atypical for her, and I'm not sure why it happened. It's not a HUGE deal, but it matters to me as a writer reading for education. I read not just for enjoyment, but to see what other writers do well and what they don't. I read to improve myself as a writer. Cassandra Clare has taught me A LOT, especially about plot and character development, so this particularly disappointed and confused me. 
 But, that being said, this only lasted for about the first third of the book. The same amount of time it took for me to become invested, oddly enough. After that, it was as if Clare finally hit her groove, and the story launched like a rocket into the realm of awesome. The ending had a really great twist and a gut-wrenching cliffhanger that will leave you begging for City of Lost Souls to come out.