Best Teen Books discussion

City of Bones City of Ashes City of Glass

Over the weekend I read the Mortal Instruments trilogy. Being the huge Harry Potter dork that I am, I've read some of Cassandra's work as she authored the hugely popular Draco Trilogy in fanfiction. Cassandra is a very unique author and one thing that she has always like to do is to write about difficult and troubling topics.

If you haven't read it, the MI Trilogy follows Clary Fray and Jace Wayland from their first meeting through the series of events that follow. Clare definitely runs the gambit in terms of difficult topics for teens (ie. normal teenage angst, homosexuality, incest issues, problem parents, etc.).

I, personally, really enjoyed reading this story. I feel that Clare is really asking her audience to do a lot when reading. She makes people have an opinion and take a stance, which I think is completely relevant in society today. She is very gifted with words and I really enjoy her writing style and character development. She is very creative. I'd say the biggest problem for me was that she stuffed a lot of action into every page in every book. Sometimes your brain just needs a second to rest (but this probably just specific to me and my brain's slow processing speed :D )

I wanted to see what people thought of these books and what it means for where YA fiction is going? How did you feel while reading? What made you nervous/excited/happy/unhappy/(fill in the blank)? Did you like/dislike?

I love Cassie's Trilogy. (And I believe it was better than some of the last chapters of the Draco Trilogy.)

The incest thing bothered a lot of people, especially during THAT scene in COG. It didn't bother me because I knew they weren't siblings. I did find she transplanted a few of her HP characters, after developing them in the DT, into her book. (ie. the Draco by the end of the trilogy is now Jace, etc.) That didn't bother me either. I do think after two books of being siblings, we needed more Jace/Clary time.

What this means for YA? I think it just reinforces the fact that YA is going to be moving to urban fantasy. (Real urban fantasy, not a world with just vampires and werewolves.) Because fantasy worlds, those with journeys are easier to explain the identity theme than regular YA fiction. Teens want to be somewhere else. An urban fantasy worlds says, "hey, it's just around the corner".

But I liked the book. It's an inspiration to my writing, so that's always high praise.

I love this series. Its one of my favorites. I love anything fantasy or paranormal especially vampires and werewolfs (yea I'm a huge Twilight Fan) and these books have all of that in them. I also like the charters. My favorite charter is Jace.