Independent+novel+study+focus+assignment

Focus assignment (#1:plot)

"The City Of Bones," is written by Cassandra Clare. The title of this book refers to the graveyard on which Valentine has his hideout. This book is set in New York, present day, and is written in third person omniscient.

The story begins with Clary and her best friend Simon at a nightclub. She is having a good time until she starts seeing things that are invisible to others. She witnesses a murder of a boy by three mysterious teenagers covered in strange markings, but when security comes, there is no evidence remaining.

The following day she and Simon are having coffee, and she sees one of the boys from the previous night. They talk and she learns his name is Jace, and that the trio from last night are shadowhunters, humans born with angel blood. Who, or what, they killed wasn't really a boy, it was a demon. Suddenly she receives a urgent phone call from her mother telling her not to come home, which Clary ignores. She runs away from Jace, returns home and finds the apartment trashed and her mother gone. A demon attacks her, and she manages to kill it using Jace's sensor. Jace finds her and carries her to the institute, his home.

She is treated for her injuries and wakes from a coma three days later. She meets the others from the nightclub, Alex and Isabelle, Jace's sister and brother. She is taught more about the shadowhunters and their job, to rid the earth of demons. She also learns of downworlders; the faeries, the vampires, the warlocks and the werewolves. She also learns of Valentine, a shadowhunter gone bad, determined to rid the world of not only its demonic presence, but also all of the downworlders, and that he is in search of the Mortal Cup; an instrument that can create other shadowhunters from humans.

On Clary's birthday, Jace brings her up to the rooftop greenhouse, to see the midnight flower and she realizes where the mortal cup is hidden. Clary, Jace, Alex, Isabelle and Simon head off to retrieve it. They survive a fight with a greater demon and head back to the institute, where they present the Mortal Cup to Hodge. He betrays them by imprisoning Clary and giving the cup and Jace to Valentine.

She manages to free herself and chases after Hodge. He is about to kill her when a werewolf-her stepfather Luke, jumps him. From him, Clary learns of her past. He explains that she is really Valentine's daughter. Luke leads the pack, on the hunt for Valentine and Jace. During the battle, Clary finds Valentine. She sees her mother unconscious, and Jace is there unharmed. Valentine tells her that Jace is his son, so she is Jace's sister. Luke arrives to fight Valentine, but he escapes through a magical portal with the Mortal Cup.

The climax comes towards the end of the book, when Luke and his pack decide to raid Valentine's hideout and Luke and Valentine fight. The climax however is not resolved because Valentine escapes defeat through a portal with the mortal cup. This book is the first in the mortal instruments trilogy, so there is eventually an end to the conflict. After the three books about Valentine, there are three more books featuring the same characters, the second of which is coming out in may.

I really enjoyed the plot of this story, like a rollercoaster there are ups and downs for all the characters. The story takes many different paths that you weren't expecting, to make the story more exiting. Even with its many twists and turns, I was able to follow the storyline, and eager to find out what happens next. I would recommend this book.