Book Review - City of Ashes

Title: City of Ashes
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: Mortal Instruments (Book 2)
Publisher: Walker
Release Date: 7 July 2008
ISBN-13: 978-1406307634

Synopsis
Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.
To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

My Review
So book 1 didn't 'Wow' me, I wasn't expecting much more from this one. I was intrigued enough to read it but not desperate to know what comes next. But with not much else to do I sat down and got stuck in, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, I actually enjoyed this one a lot more than the first one. It seemed to move quicker, flow better and was just overall more exciting. 
The whole Clary/Jace angst started to get on my nerves a bit, it's a bit forced and over the top and drawn out way too long in my opinion. But they work well together when they are not all goggly eyed at each other and for that I'm grateful. When they are fighting demons they totally kick butt.
Simon - now I didn't see much relevance to Simon in the first book so I was really glad he plays a much more important role in this one and I've actually come to really like him, he's a great guy and handles all these situations really well - whatever is thrown at him, and a lot is thrown at him - he handles it and still puts Clary first.
There were still odd parts that felt quite drawn out and over explained but not as much as in book 1 and I got through this book a lot quicker because of it. This one took me less than a day whereas book 1 took me about 4 days on and off.
The world of the Shadowhunters and Downworlders really develops in this book and I had a much more 3D image of it all in my head, it's a place that I think would be very interesting to explore and delve deeper into. 
This series seems to be picking up a bit for me, so maybe it can still live up to it's hype. I'm going to move straight on to book 3 and hope it keeps getting better.

My Rating