The Mortal Instruments Series VS The Infernal Devices Series

VS

I've been thinking about doing some different styled posts, rather than just writing reviews, so I came up with the idea of kind of comparing these two series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.

These books were written by Cassandra Clare and they are both set in the same universe, the world of the Shadowhunters. 

The Mortal Instruments has six books in total: City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire.  

This is a urban fantasy young adult series and this is basically a series that everyone has read and/or heard about so I don't think that I have to go into the plot. It is based around Shadowhunters, who are basically half human-half angel warriors who protect the world from demons. I love this series. I think the world is really amazing and intriguing and I love the way it was built. Every book adds on to the main premise of it, and you are always discovering new things, but they are nicely interwoven into the already existing story. I adore the characters in this book, everyone of them. I usually don't get along with main characters that are youngish girls, they tend to annoy me at one point or the other, but I really like Clary. She is a strong character. Maybe not so much at first, but she has great character development and really develops more and more with each book, and kind of ends up being really great. I love every single character in this book. I really do. Jace, Izzy, Alec... I feel like her characters are complex in a way and I just enjoy them so much. They change so much through the series and grow with it, which is great. And Magnus Bane is one of the greatest characters ever, obviously. I love the plot here. It has twists, and it's gripping and these books were definite page turners for me. I read them so quickly and I couldn't get enough. Especially City of Glass and City of Heavenly Fire, which were my favorite. This turned into one of my favorite series ever and I can't wait for the next installments. 

With that being said, I picked up the prequel series, which is set in the Victorian era and deal with the lives of the ancestors of the characters from The Mortal Instruments series. 

The Infernal Devices series consists of three books: Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess. I was hesitant to pick this up, because I am not a big fan of books taking place in that era, but still everyone was saying how they actually prefer The Infernal Devices so I had to see for myself. Now, when I read the first two books, I was not impressed at all. It wasn't bad by any means, it could never be, but to me it could never have been compared to The Mortal Instruments. The thing is I don't like Tessa very much. I don't hate her, but I am not the biggest fan. But I love all the other characters so so much. I may even dare to say that I prefer them to the MI characters. Maybe. I don't know. But, I do love them. Will and Jem are amazing and have an amazing relationship which is so beautiful that it's painful. I adore them honestly, both in their own way. But for me, the plot in these books was underwhelming for me. I don't think it's very thought through, and I don't know, it seemed stretched somehow, and I just didn't find it exciting. I was not really into it that much. But, after reading Clockwork Princess and bawling my eyes out for three hours and not sleeping throughout the night, I was inclined to say that I loved the books. I think the ending of Clockwork Princess was one of the saddest and most beautifully written endings that I have ever read. Honestly, that was the best part of the whole series. It was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. I just loved it a lot.

With all that being said, I would give The Mortal Instruments series kind of an edge, because I just didn't enjoy the plot in The Infernal Devices. But I do love the characters in both series and the world and the writing really sits well with me. 

More Than This by Patrick Ness

This is my first encounter with one of Patrick Ness' books and I really enjoyed it, hence I will be picking up The Knife of Never Letting Go next. 

This book is about a boy, who actually drowns and dies. But, he wakes up in a house in which he lived in as a child in England (which is strange, because he lived in America now), kind of battered and bruised, but somehow alive. 

That is basically all you need to know about it, and all I knew going into it. And I think that is the best way to read this book, and just let it unfold on itself, which will be surprising and unexpected. 

I really liked this book. It was more than it seemed to be at first. To me, it felt almost layered. As the book went one, it got deeper and deeper, uncovering more and more of its so-called layers. This seems as though it's one thing, but then kind of changes and reveals something unexpected. Throughout the story, you never know what is real and what is actually going on. You are left guessing and kind of choosing for yourself, because there are different options, so to speak.  I really liked that, I generally enjoy that kind of setting. This book was very thought provoking and when I finished it, I ended up thinking about it for days. It kind of lingered with me. 

With all that being said, it took me ages to finish this book. I can't even remember when I started it. I just took me a lot of time to get into it, and when I finally did I found it a bit slow. For me, this meant that at times, I felt completely detached from it. So that kind of ruined the experience for me and I even thought of putting down. I ended up sticking through it, because I did in fact like it, but it just took a lot of effort to finish it. 

Anyways, this was all in all, a really good book, and I gave it 4/5 stars on Goodreads. Definitely recommend this one if you like slow, thought-provoking books.