Really great young adult fiction transcends its own category, and is simply great fiction. Not so for City of Bones -- this one is clearly for teens, with limited appeal to adults. The story of a supposedly ordinary mortal girl, who discovers a hidden world of demon hunters and the supernatural, is well-told and suspenseful. Once I got into it, it was hard to put down. The plot is fast-moving and exciting, but for all that, it rings a little hollow. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into the reasons why images from both the Harry Potter series and Star Wars kept popping into my mind. City of Bones is entertaining, enough so that I'm intending to read the other two books in the series (The Mortal Instruments). However, if you're looking for depth or meaning beyond a breathless story, this might not be the book for you.