City of Heavenly Fire: Volume 6 (Mortal Instruments, #6)

by Cassandra Clare

"Darkness has descended on the Shadowhunter world. Chaos and destruction overwhelm the Nephilim as Clary, Jace, Simon, and their friends band together to fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary's own brother. Nothing in this world can defeat Sebastian--but if they journey to the realm of demons, they just might have a chance."--

• ISBN10: 1442416890
• ISBN13: 9781442416895
• Publish Date: 27 May 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 752
• Language: English

Reviews

"As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss." (Brother Zachariah)

I have a weird relationship with The Mortal Instruments series. There are some books, characters and elements that I hate, some that I love and some that I don't care for. City of Heavenly Fire ends the The Mortal Instruments series on a high note.

There are two issues that I have with City of Heavenly Fire:
1) The weird pacing. When I started reading City of Heavenly Fire, it was easy to put down because the events that occur are slow and uninteresting. There's also switches from the middle of intense action scenes to slow, mundane scenes and while this occurs in previous Mortal Instruments books, I was more affected in City of Heavenly Fire because it's a long book.
2) The unnecessary stuff. I get that Cassandra Clare was trying to set up The Dark Artifices series and I love Emma Carstairs and the Blackthorn family, but too much of emphasis is placed on them and their character development and it took away from the main characters' story arcs.

I never had much love for Clary in previous books of The Mortal Instruments series and City of Heavenly Fire is no exception. However, she put her awesome rune powers to good use in City of Heavenly Fire. I never cared for Jace in previous books in The Mortal Instruments series, but I like him in City of Heavenly Fire. He knows himself and is trying to be more open and self-aware and he's less self-deprecating. I also like where Jace and Clary's relationship is heading after reading City of Heavenly Fire. They're not doing stupid things to protect each other and they don't make choices for each other, instead they treat each other as equals and work as a team.

Simon has become one of my favourite characters in the Shadowhunter Universe. He's a real and relatable nerd, but he's also selfless and heroic. I also love Isabelle's personality and character arc. She's fierce, strong and outspoken, but she's also vulnerable and guards her heart. I love the relationship between Isabelle and Simon. It's awesome to witness Isabelle opening her heart to someone and Simon giving love another chance.

Alec from City of Bones and Alec from City of Heavenly Fire are worlds apart. City of Heavenly Fire is the first book in The Mortal Instruments series where I understood Alec and his personality. He's more mature and he knows what he wants and what matters. I also like the development of Alec and Magnus's relationship in City of Heavenly Fire. Magnus is another one of my favourite Shadowhunter Universe characters.

I love Maia and her character arc has so much of potential, but she felt like a minor character in City of Heavenly Fire. She deserves better.

Sebastian is a good villain. He's ruthless, cruel, evil and bloodthirsty and the whole incest thing is sickening, however, I can't help but feel sympathetic towards him. He didn't choose to have demon blood running through his veins.

The plot is nothing short of amazing. So many thing happen and every event that occurs raises the stakes. However, there's lots of foreshadowing and I could see some of the plot twists coming from miles away.

I've spent 7 years of my life with The Mortal Instruments series and if there's one thing that Cassandra Clare knows how to write, it's series finales. City of Heavenly Fire is my favourite book in The Mortal Instruments series.

""Heroes aren't always the ones who win", she said. "They're the ones who lose sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes."" (Clary Fairchild)

[catiebug]

I know a lot of people love the first 3 books of The Mortal Instruments and hated the last 3, but I loved this series the more it went on. I liked this series when I started it, but I had a hard time getting into it. But now I'm in love after finishing the whole series and I'm so glad there are more books to read! I love these characters and this world and want to read more.

[Leah]

What a wild ride. I've read all six Mortal Instruments books, all three Infernal Devices books and The Bane Chronicles since February 14th. I'm exhausted. I'm kinda mad at myself for reading them in such a short space of time because once I was halfway through, I kinda got fatigued but I wanted to carry on because I wanted the series over with, to see how it ended, but I definitely would have preferred to just read these books as they were published, with a nice year-long gap in between. Because they're massive. I have read about 5,000 pages give or take of the same freaking series since February. It's all I've read and it's incredibly overwhelming.

Mind you, I am so glad I read the series. It was incredible. How Cassandra Clare wrote so many books in such a short space of time that are so freaking long is heroic. I bow down. *BOWS* To then interweave the Infernal Devices with the Mortal Instruments is even more insane. (And she plans to do it again with The Dark Artifices and The Lost Hours or The Eldest Curses IDK!) There are four trilogies to go, before Cassandra is done with the Shadowhunters completely and it's insane to think it's spanned so many books! But it works, because I was never bored of the stories, merely fatigued at how intense it all was.

City of Heavenly Fire wraps up the Mortal Instruments perfectly. It's not exactly Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I don't think a finale book will ever be as good as Deathly Hallows, but it wrapped up a lot of stuff (and killed a few people). RIP Raphael and I do not see that as a spoiler because literally everyone has already read this series.

I just... I'm overwhelmed. The way the story connected to TID, the fighting, the battles, meeting Emma and Julian (from Lady Midnight), my head feels like it could explode to keep up with so many characters. But it was worth it as well, because you really feel like you've been on a journey (and a half) with Clary and the Shadowhunters. Probably the only thing I didn't like was what happened to Simon. Was there any need? REALLY? Why ruin one of the greatest friendships ever written and one of the greatest love stories that was just getting started (I am a HARDCORE Simon/Izzy shipper) but in all endings sacrifices had to be made, and I don't know how otherwise it would have occurred. Bloody Simon and his selflessness. IT JUST MAKES HIM EVEN GREATER. If Cassandra had one extra trilogy in her, after the four we have coming, I'd want it to be about Simon. I could literally read about him forever. It may not have meant to be his story, but he bloody well took over and he was by far my favourite.

[sstaley]

I have to say that I was not disappointed at all with the last book in this series. This has been one of my favorite series to read the past several years. I felt that all of the characters grew and changed for the better and it showed in book 6. I loved how Clary and Jace worked through things and they truly became a team and learned to trust each other. The big showdown was exciting and had a great twist at the end. No spoilers here, but the whole series came full circle and I was very satisfied with the conclusion.

[bestmessever]

What am I supposed to do with my life now......?

[KitsuneBae]

Actual: 1.5 stars

After a year, I finally got to reading this. Those last 50 pages really had me tearing my hair out. As I've said, Claire should have stopped at fucking book 3.

[pamela]

This was a surprisingly strong ending to the series which I actually enjoyed immensely. There were some truly laugh out loud moments, and it came to a good resolution while still setting it up for further books. It had just the right amount of tragedy, and just the right amount of hope. And indeed, I liked that not everyone received a happy ending; to be honest I wasn't expecting the Clave to remain such dicks!

These books were fun and diverting, and while Cassandra Clare is almost obviously at times writing a Harry Potter/Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles Mashup it didn't matter, because the books (if I pretend book five never happened) were fun, fast paced and bloody enjoyable. They felt more inspired by, rather than derivative which is rare in a book which so obviously takes from its source material.

[Kim Deister]

City of Heavenly Fire I have loved this series and I think that City of Heavenly Fire just might be my favorite of the entire series. There was a ton of action, a lot of tearjerking moments, love, sacrifice, and twists and turns that I never saw coming. And I loved every moment of it!
 
Very little about this book was what I expected. I knew that there would be tears and there were, but not when I thought. I knew that there would be sacrifices, but they weren't made by the characters that I expected. I expected surprises, but I got them in ways I hadn't imagined.
 
I truly enjoyed the unexpected in this book. After a long series, there are always fan favorites. Endings you want, love you want, situations you want to happen. Very little of what I expected to happen actually happened, yet I felt no disappointment. Things changed, drastically changed, and the unexpected changes were not only satisfying, but they opened up the series to continue in other ways and I can't wait for that!
 
My Recommendation
 
I loved this series, and I loved this book. For reasons I don't understand, many readers don't bother with epilogues. But this is a book where I feel like the epilogue is vital to the story, too! Great ending to a fabulous series!

[readingwithwrin]

I have so many mixed emotions about this book and this whole series.

I did really enjoy it, but some parts were just pointless to me and I feel like it could have all happened without so much buildup or talking about it.

I think what confused me the most was Sebastian he would want to do one thing to the shadow hunters one minute and then completely change it the next.

My favorite part of the whole series though was how sarcastic all of the characters were, and how they kept that with them throughout the story even when everything else went to hell.

It was very nice to see the majority of people get somewhat of a happy ending, and for everything to be resolved for the most part. What didn't get resolved in these books I'm hoping gets resolved in the two spinoff series.

See more reviews like this on my blog

[shannonmiz]

Actual rating: 2.5 Stars

I'm going to be honest here, I wasn't super eager to read this one. I didn't know how exactly 725 more pages of this same group of people would be possible, really. Didn't we kind of cover it all already? Who loved who, who fought who, who was good, who was evil, who was and was not related to who... It really seemed like this group had run out of steam.

I actually read this book quicker than I'd thought I would. I must say that it moved pretty fast, despite the length and general repetitive nature. I'm going to just break this down into some likes and dislikes.

Likes:
The Supporting Characters. I have always loved Simon, and Magnus is so fun. Even though I was annoyed that some characters were introduced just to gain interest for the next series, I was glad that there were some new people around.
I enjoyed the ending. I probably shouldn't have as much as I did, but I did. It wasn't creative, or even particularly exciting, but I liked it.
There were a few really sweet life-lesson-type moments that I really enjoyed.

There were also a few (not a ton, but a few) scenes that left me with a pretty solid amount of feels.
Dislikes:
Didn't I read this one already? Sebastian. Clary and Jace are just soooo in love. Vampires. Werewolves. Parents only mildly involved. Runes. Portals. Yep, definitely read it already. It was boring then, and it is boring now.

There were a lot of convenient moments. As in pretty much all of them.
I kind of have no idea why Jace and Clary are in love. Actually, why any of the couples are in love. It's just like, "oh, blah-blah loves so-and-so", and I'm just supposed to accept that without any evidence. Great plan.

There were so many characters. Seriously, there were names being thrown at me that I couldn't have told you the significance of if my life freaking depended on it. These weren't even actual necessary characters in most cases, more like fillers (or God forbid, another spin-off?) but they threw me off, because I had to spend time trying to figure out if they were important enough for me to worry about remembering who the hell they were.

Not much actually happened, considering there were 725 pages. It just wasn't interesting to me at all, seemed drawn out, and mainly unnecessary.
Bottom Line: There were good moments. I was glad I read the whole book. But I would be lying if I rated it any higher. And if I didn't have legit OCD issues with stopping a series midway, I probably never would have made it past book three. So sure, read it if you're invested in the series, it is a nice enough farewell. But in the grand scheme of books? Pass.

Full review can be found here