Teens Monthly Book Club discussion

Hey guys!

Here is the discussion thread for this month's read - City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, the first in the Mortal Instruments series.

I've only ever watched the tv show for Shadowhunters and I really enjoyed it! There's mixed opinions around about this book so hopefully it turns out great! (or else we'll get some good discussions going haha)

Happy reading everyone :)

heyyy! i own City Of Bones (the full series) but haven’t got round to reading it yet, so i’m so happy this is botm!! :))

That awesome! I actually used to own a copy ages ago but I gave it away because I thought the blurb seemed terrible lol. Now that I've seen the show though I can't wait to give it another chance!

hey guys! im excited to read this because i usually only read thrillers or YA romance and i really want to give other YA genres a try!!

also, this is something that’s keeping my brain open about this trilogy:

most people’s opinion (aka the youtubers i’m addicted to) is that Cassandra Clare improves her writing in every book, so by the time you’ve finished the first one, if it’s a bit terrible, apparently every one in the trilogy gets better, if that makes sense?

I read the series a few years ago, but I’m excited to reread and see if my opinions on it have changed at all

Omg I’m sad and exited that where reading this book!
In my country there isn’t really a library that borrows English books ,so I have to buy my books if I want them in English witch I want.
(I’m kinda saving money because I want animal crossing and a switch heheh)
But I can read the book in Dutch but everything is called different even the names of caracters what I think is pretty annoying.
Idk if anyone else has this problem but yeah just wanted to say that😂

O wow I never even considered the problems with translations. So weird that they even change the character names!
(have fun saving for a switch btw lol) :)

i’m also currently saving, which is going terribly. i’m tryna save up for a crosley record player and omg i keep on buying books, i can’t stop myself lol :)

Eliza honestly same I’m trying to save some money and than my book ends and I’m like I have to have part two like I have to sooo it’s hard I get ur struggle 😂😂 good luck saving !!
Charlotte thanks my mom helped me out and I ordered it yesterday :)

lmaoo yea, also i want animal crossing so baddd, but i don’t have the willpower to save up hundreds for just one game haha x

Yes I was shook my mom was like ur not seriously gonna spend that kind of money on a game😂

i’m more of a sims addict, u play sims?

Kind of my bestfriend owns it and we always play it together.

ack, u should buy that!!! it’s so gooood :)

Yess I actually should :)

no pressure tho lmao. my sims is currently broken (i dropped my laptop) so i’m tryna spread my sims love onto other people hahah!

O no that sucks I actually don’t have a laptop I had sims on my old laptop but I dropped the screen so I can only see half of the game witch is sooo annoying that’s why I don’t play except on other people’s devices

if one of your parents has a laptop or you have a family pc or something, u can download origin and use your previous origin acc to get sims for free x

Hello =] accidentally found this page, I'm actually reading this rn yay! currently 200 pages in , I'm looking forward to the discussion

I haven’t started yet! I need to finish my current book tonight, then I’ll start tomorrow :)

great timing rais haha welcome to the group :) also same Eliza lol. I havent got a copy yet cause i hate ebooks but school reopens for grade 12s on monday so ill be able to get a copy from the library!

Ooh lucky, I actually can’t wait for school to reopen. Also, I started City Of Bones last night. It kinda reminds me of Percy Jackson for some reason ahah

thank you charlotte ^^ im not sure when my school will reopen they actually pushed the exams a few months earlier so its almost the end of the semester (online exams of course)

exactly eliza ! thats what i thought too, it definitely has some similarities with percy jackson

I live in America and all colleges have already been closed for the semester (im in college aka university) but I finished yesterday and am on summer break. It was announced yesterday that all schools in my state are closed for the rest of the year! It goes by state though so not sure how other American states are handling it!

i’m english, and all my unis were closed a few weeks back :(

Im Dutch and my high school is closed till 1st of June and half a class is aloud to go to school so yeah

i’m suprised you’re already going back. also robin, i didn’t know you were dutch!! u live in holland right? it’s so pretty. i want to live in amsterdam or rotterdam so baddd :(

Yess Holland 🇳🇱
I live in Amsterdam and its verry bizzy but nice ahah😂

uhhh so jealous. i live in a quiet peaceful stereotypical english village, i can’t wait to go world exploring :)

My dad is from England so we go there a lot and i love it there .
I guess the place you live gets boring after awhile because u literally spend so much time there😂
I can’t wait to explore too!!

aww sweet :) did you just get a message asking you to participate in a non-profit website or something?

Yes I did but I’m not opening it haha

i did lmao, but if anything sketchy happens like ‘what’s your address *for professional purposes* i’m gone lmao’

Haha honestly same but like I don’t have amazone in my country anyways😂

really!?! what do u have?

It’s called Bol.com hahaga

ahah, does that mean anything in dutch, or is it something cool and random like Insta (who got the idea for that name?)
anyway i’m veering off track from the actual discussion aswell; i’m nearly 100 pages in. i’ve met most of the base characters and starting to see how it’s a fandom. writing style is quite simple, but in the ‘noughties’ a lot of YA ‘fantasy’ books were written more simply than they are now, and apparently now CC uses very deep, stronger writing in her recent books :)

I just finished the book! I didn't like it as much as I thought I would but I definitely did enjoy it.. the writing in my opinion was natural and honest which I like, the storyline was quite captivating, I had some problems with the characters but I definitely liked most of them

Eliza yeah it’s something Dutch it’s like a site it is basically amazon but a little different

I feel like I'm reading percy jackson all over again with less humor and a more of an everyday narration.

I like the book but I don't like it.
The idea was good but the story was bad if that makes any sense. I kind of figured out about the daughter thing since the marriage and all that was first mentioned but the sibling business left a bad taste in my mouth. Most of all, I am so not interested in reading the next book and that is a bad thing cause if I start a series, I usually can't get myself to stop until I've read all the books.

I really enjoyed this book but never got around to reading the others because of the ending but I would love to read it again!

first day back at school today so i now have a copy of the book from the library! :)

yey!!!

was your first day back alright? what’s changed?

yeah it was alright. only the 2 senior grades went back so it was much quieter obviously. the juniors come back in 2 weeks. teachers had to socially distance but other than that it was mostly the same. it was great seeing my friends again! :)

good for you!! i still might not be going back before july, or even september :(

that sucks :(

In other news though i finally started reading the book! ive read part one so far which for me is quite fast because normally I'm a slow reader which is a testament to the easy writing in the book. its certainly not the greatest thing ever but im enjoying it! if i hadnt first seen the show im not sure i would say the same lol. one bad thing is though I've come across a couple of typos and in general the writing style is a bit iffy. but i guess thats like you said how it gets better as the series goes on