Raven: City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments #3)

A novel by Cassandra Clare

Publication Date: 24th March, 2009

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 541

Targeted Audience: Young Adult

Summary: To save her mother's life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters - never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight.

As Clary uncovers more about her family's past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunter Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace realizes exactly how much he's willing to risk for Clary, can she harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City - whatever the cost?
Love is a mortal sin and the secrets of the past prove deadly as Clary and Jace face down Valentine in the third installment of the New York Times bestselling series The Mortal Instruments.

Clary needs to revive her mother from whatever spell she's under and to do so she needs to find the Warlock-Ragnor Fell. The Warlock resides in Alicante (The City of Glass) and Clary decides to go there with the Lightwood family and Jace through a portal, and that's where things go terribly wrong. 

Instead of Clary, Simon ends up in Alicante and Simon being a Downworlder and all. Yeah, he was not so welcome. 

Clary, however, does find her way to the city of glass and meets Sebastian. Something about him sounds warning alarms all over her head. There is something definitely dark about him but he seems so sweet. Clary is confused. Not to mention that her relationship with Jace is bordering between weird and cliche. That's my opinion on it. To be honest, I find Alec and Magnus' relationship waaay better than Clary and Jace's. (There is little treat for all the Alec and Magnus lovers in this book)

 Jace and Clary find out more about their past, some good and some bad secrets bob up to the surface.

Valentine has declared war over Alicante. He with his Demon army plans to control all of the Shadowhunters and obviously destroy all Downworlders. Shadowhunters don't stand a chance against Valentines army but maybe if they join hands with the Downworlders, they might just win. But will they?

Valentine is so ruthless and wicked in this book, that I have fallen in love with his iniquitous ways (Call me psych, but it's true) He just seems like a royal arse who just flaunts his evilness. I love it.

Valentines true aim from the first book has been to acquire the three mortal instruments. After having already gotten The Mortal Cup and The Mortal Sword, all he needs now is The Mortal Mirror. 

So this is the whole plot of the book without any spoilers (Yes, yes you can bow to me now) 

I have mixed feelings about this book. Sure it had some great moments but way too  many cheesy lines for me to digest. Many so-called-suspense had obvious outcomes and I didn't like the way the characters reacted to some of the situations. For example, Isabelle just goes through a huge emotional instability after attending a funeral and what makes her feel better? Intimacy. I had felt absolutely disgusted at this point.

But yes, everything has been finally explained in this book. NO cliffhangers and it had one of the best climax scenes. I am looking forward to the next book in the series (City of Fallen Angels) I would give this book 3.75 stars (It loses it's stars for the oh-so-cheesy scenes and not-so-suspenseful suspenses) 

Lots of love and Pasta

Raven

Beez: Stargirl

Jerry Spinelli

From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, hallways hum “Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’s heart with one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. Until they are not. Leo urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her - normal.

Stargirl.

This is a book about a girl named Stargirl.       

If i had to choose one word to describe Stargirl it would be magical.         

Stargirl Caraway is magical.

She is fascinating, different, unique, mesmerizing and beautiful.

She waltz in like a breeze of fresh air and leaves them speechless.

She has a totally different way of looking at the world around her. She is completely fascinating.

She completely captured my heart as she did Leo.

There is a boy, Leo. From the first day Stargirl comes he is too mesmerized like all of the others. He has never seen anyone as her, no one so vibrant and fascinating.

Every next thing she does makes him more and more hooked to her.            

Every day he waits for her and wonders what she will do that day. Like everyone else he is intrigued.         
    

Further more, the things she does not only stuns him but also creates questions in his mind and enraptures him. He wonders and is puzzled. He is also terrified of her. He wonders what is she. He tries to identify or give her some sort of word, but with Stargirl that never works out.

I loved this book.

In fact I'm going to be reading it again and note down all the amazing lines even though there might be quite a lot.

Its such a shame there are hardly any Stargirl's left in this world. This world needs Stargirl.

I applaud Jerry Spinelli. He has written this book artfully. And this type of book takes courage to write.

I feel like i shouldn't give u a summary of this book. I feel that every person should experience it without any pre thoughts or something. Also every stage fascinates you and if i tell u what fun will it be? Discovering Stargirl and her antics are so much fun and adds such a lightness and wonder to this book. I felt every part of this book was good. It was quite real. And as for leo, though i felt he was useless i don't quite blame him. We might think we would have choosen otherwise but it makes us wonder what is really important. Would we be brave enough to choose Stargirl?

This is not a love story or anything dramatically teenager. Its about being yourself.

Stargirl is plain magic, the way she enraptures the people and stuns them, not caring even a little what they think. 

Finding out Stargirl through Leo's eyes was brilliant. The way this story progresses is brilliant. This is a unique book.i think everyone should read it.
 

No one is as brave as Stargirl. It takes real courage to be her. 

I don't believe anyone cant like this book. This is not like other books,  its a different and special book.        

As for the ending, i have to say this is one of the best books worth that sort of an ending. It might not be amazing but its wonderful in its own sense.

Stargirl might be gone, but she is forever.

Now toodles cause i gotta go read the sequel.      

Lots of love and strawberry-banana smoothie
Beez.

Raven + Beez - Me before You by Jojo Moyes

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

I know its terribly cliche to begin a review with a sobbing picture or rants about sobbing but....

My heart is bleeding!

This book is beautifully devastating.

Sometimes I feel like killing the author Jojo Moyes for doing this to me.

This is one book that I could read a million times but still feel torn and heart broken.

In fact I think I should stop writing this review now because no matter what I write I can never do this book any justice.

This is one of those books that just pulls you in, slowly mesmerizing you, making you break into smiles every few seconds and makes you grow such a bond with the characters you didn't think possible!

The story: Lou is a 20 something girl who is satisfied with her life. She does not really yearn to live fully and crazily. While Will would kill to be able to just have the option and the choice of doing so much with his life.

As it happens Lou begins working for will!

And in all that time, Lou learns how to live, how to be full spirited while trying to remind a man that life is worth living. With several twists and heart wrenching scenes in this book, Jojo Moyes completely makes you fall in love with Will, the arse, and Lou the girl with the striped legs.

Their journey in this been written in this astoundingly real way and not made it feel like make believe. There are no magical coincidences and there is a lot of sarcasm and normalness.

There are various truths and understandings along the journeys and some terrible and truths and then finally those twists that twist your heart. This book tells us to live a little bolder and never settle for less because it may be taken away from you any time. This book also tells that sometimes things don't go like you think they will and that change and taking risks are very frightening but very needed as well. Out there is a world waiting for you to open it and take all what you want from it.

This story was written in an amazing way with the perfect plot to connect with you. When this book surprises you, it feels like those times when you feel as if life has slapped you on the face and it stings. Perfect in every way.

As for the ending, I don't know if I would have changed the ending. Probably not. As much as I want what happened not to have happened, the ending was perfect and made me sob my lungs out. This is actually my second time reading this book. I STILL CANT GET OVER IT.

What makes this book even more amazing are those little moments. In Alicia's wedding the dance between will and Lou, the storm night in Mauritius, Lou's birthday party, the various concerts they attend, the foreign films will makes Lou watch.

This is a beautiful book and I suggest every one that read it once in your life even the guys out there. I mean it, there's soo much more to this book than falling in love. There's the bitter truth and all that. 
On an ending note I should probably warn you that this book gives out dangerous emotions and guarantees outbursts and depression periods. Totally worth it though!

Lots of love & chocolate marshmallow pizza
Beez.

As usual, this is just another one of the books that Beez forced me to read and I'm glad she did. This isn't your typical romance novel, even though the beginning may fool you into thinking so. I don't really know what genre to put it in since it has almost everything except for supernatural and fantasy stuff.

Me before You was released last year and everyone knows that Twilight was all the rage at the time. This book went unnoticed among almost everyone. Why? Because the publishing market was craving for more vamps and werewolves. But thank the lord that this book was published. If such a book remained as a draft then it would be a crime. A crime towards all the people who cherish a beautiful, heart-touching book. 

The story might sound confusing but I think that's what makes this book something you can relate to. Since life is one huge pile of schist. 

Louisa was a really happy and satisfied woman. She had the best job, a hot/rich boyfriend, a small house with her bedroom (or closet) being the smallest, financial problems, a younger sister, Katrina who is always smarter than her, an old grandfather who is just a burden... okay so maybe I should cut off the "Happy" part about her life.

And I should probably mention that unlike any other "normal" individual she has no desire what so ever to explore the world around her, to gain fame or whatever.  She just wants to  work since she loses her great job at a tea shop. She wants to support her family again because she was the only one who was working. 

After going through the options of working at a chicken fast food restaurant and working as a stripper she finally decides to try for the job of taking care of a quadriplegic, even though she was afraid that she would have to wipe butts.

She ends up getting the job and all she has to do is keep Will happy. Easy right? Wrong. 

Will has lived every moment of his life to the fullest until his accident. He doesn't regret anything he ever did but he was a man who wanted to live more and here comes along a woman who is actually satisfied with her boring, imperfect life and is responsible for giving him a reason to live.

On one hand, Lou is helping Will see a whole new perspective of life through his wheelchair and on the other hand, Will is trying his best to make Lou attain something in life. In a way you could say that while Will is bound to his chair physically, Lou is bound to her fear of unfamiliarity which restrains both of them from gaining more than what they actually can.

Also it's funny how two people see things in a completely different perspective. While I thought that Will was more like a gentleman, Beez considered him more of an arse (a good arse of course) 

I just love how funny the whole book is. The sarcasm and the extent to which we can relate to almost everything that happens in the book is just wonderful. It's like a bonus to the awesome plot of the story. I can't imagine anyone not liking this book. The immaturity of Lou is hilarious and the sibling rivalry is expressed perfectly.

There is no part that I can mention in particular because there are many tiny and special moments that I cherished. Like Beez said, it's those little moments that make this book amazing. Another thing that separates this book from all the other ones out there is the "This is life not fiction" feel of it. Half of the time I expected Will to get up from his wheely and hold Lou tight but of course nothing like that happens in real life. 

Now about the ending, I wouldn't want it to change no matter what. Even though I laid the book aside and cried my eyes out into the pillow, I still wouldn't want the ending to change. It's just another specialty of this book. It's got one of the most perfect ending in the history of perfect fiction endings. 

Usually, no matter how much I love fangirling about a book, I won't read it again unless required but this book... I won't mind opening this book on any cold, rainy day with hot chocolate and tissues. In fact if anyone asks me for a good book I will smack their face with this one and force them to read it. Yes, it is THAT good.

I would gladly rate it a 5. 

Lots of love & Pasta,

Raven

Here's a few of our favourite quotes:

‘I just . . . want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress. Just for a few minutes more.’
"It has been, the best six months of my entire life."

"Funnily enough, Clark, mine too." 
“I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.” 

“... if you're going to wear a dress like that you need to wear it with confidence. You need to fill it out mentally as well as physically.” 
“There are normal hours, and then there are invalid hours, where time stalls and slips, where life---real life---seems to exist at one remove.” 
“It's complicated.'

'So's quantitative easing. But I still get that it means printing money.” 
“How could you live each day knowing that you were simply whiling away the days until your own death?” 

Yeah! Cinco!!

And here is our Dream Cast for this beautiful book!

Hugh Dancy as Will, Zooey Deschanel as Louisa, Ginifer gooodwin as Treena, Eric winters as Patrick, Hayden Christensen as Nathan