City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
My actual thought, three-quarters through this book: But I don’t even like this book. So why do I kind of like it?

That about sums it up. This book is better than the prequel – tighter, better structure, more tension – but there still isn’t . . . Okay, here’s the thing. I think it is cheap and easy to target formerly fannish authors with the derivative police. Everyone’s fiction is derivative, but authors who started out writing fanfic have to endure this finite scrutiny to prove they’re original enough, or they’ve “outgrown it,” with exactly the snide hostility I’m implying (including from people who should really know better). Needless to say, I’m not interested in picking this series apart and arguing about which bits look too much like Harry Potter and Buffy and whatever.

What I am interested in is the overall effect. There are transformative works – fannish and traditionally published – that are fantastic and intertextual and simultaneously freestanding and awesome and, you know, transformative. And there are transformative works – fanfic and traditionally published – that just make you want to go and read the source texts that are a few links back up the creative chain, because that would be more satisfying. This series is the second. I would frankly rather watch Buffy. But that’s not because Cassie used to write fanfic, that’s just because Cassie writes like Cassie, and I’ve never been able to work up much of a damn about her stuff.

Anyway. My point was that I still don’t actually care about any of these people, and the “witty banter” is still painful, and the epigraphs are still pretentious (Latin? really?), but there is just enough something going on to keep me reading. Dunno what, but I suspect this is empty calorie reading hitting me exactly right just before exams.

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