Photo Credit: Isabella Mahal

Cassandra Clare’s debut novel was released in 2007. Entitled The City of Bones, it featured a new world, one in which Shadowhunters protect the human race from the demons that wish to take control of Earth. As a reader who only ever enjoyed the fantasy found in Harry Potter, it took me several tries to get into The Mortal Instruments series. However, once I did, I didn’t stop reading for weeks until I’d finished all six Mortal Instruments books and all three Infernal Devices prequels.

The main character of The Mortal Instruments series is Clarissa Fray, or Clary. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and considers herself the average fifteen year old girl, who goes to poetry readings with her best friend Simon and fights with her mom for not letting her go to art camp. However, that’s where the traditional, young adult novel stereotype ends. When Clary and Simon visit Pandemonium one night, a club that allows minors in, Clary witnesses a murder. At least, she thinks she does. It isn’t until Simon starts asking her why she’s so upset that she realizes that no one else could see what she just saw.

From that moment, Clary’s eyes are opened to the Shadow World. She meets the teenagers she saw at Pandemonium a second time, and when tragedy strikes her world, she comes to rely on them to repair her family. In return, she becomes entrenched in a whole new reality. She begins to count among her friends vampires, werewolves, and warlocks, all with abilities, nuances, and their own societies. They are known as Downworlders, and often aid the Shadowhunters to help protect the mundanes, or humans.

The first few novels focus on the quest of the Shadowhunters and their allies to destroy Valentine, an evil Shadowhunter intent on destroying the human race to help the Shadowhunters rise to power. He holds the Mortal Cup, capable of turning any human to one, or capable of killing them if they are unworthy. He will stop at nothing to achieve these aims, even killing his own flesh and blood.

As a character, Clary is extraordinarily likeable to any young adult. She is intelligent and witty enough to quickly grasp and accept the world she becomes exposed to, but she also questions “why” more often than not. She is fiercely loyal to those she loves, and possesses a great deal of fighting ability and bravery. She becomes both the world’s hero and her own, all while managing to navigate the traditional high-school drama of boyfriends and finding her place as she grows.

Clare excels at crafting an entire parallel universe. In my opinion, the best types of fantasy are those that have the potential to exist alongside our own, and she does just that, including numerous other species, explanations of the reasons our society is the way it is, and just enough parallelism to make every reader wish they too could be a Shadowhunter.

The series also features the classic trademark of young adult literature – a love triangle. Clary has to pick between the boy-next-door who’s been in love with her since elementary school and the new, rebellious Shadowhunter who helps her believe she can conquer anything. Besides these romances, there are also many which span different species.

That is another aspect of what makes Clare’s writing so timely. The objections the Clave – the governing body of Shadowhunters – have to interspecies marriages are treated just as interracial marriages have been traditionally treated by the world. In later novels, Clare alludes to the ideas of white nationalism, as radical groups who want to “cleanse” the Shadowhunters of half-breeds and Downworlders are introduced. Clare clearly acknowledges the bad parts of the world, but as in any fantasy series worth its salt, good will triumph in the end.

For any reader with plenty of time on their hands or anyone wishing to read themselves into a new life, I recommend The Mortal Instruments. It has something for everyone, whether that’s a cute love story, epic battle scenes, or a tale of best friendship that extends to platonic love. The series will shock you, make you laugh out loud, and ultimately take hold in your heart.