The City of Bones is the first book in a fantasy series by Cassandra Clare, the Shadowhunter series. The book imagines a world in which magical creatures of all sorts exist, but are generally invisible to ordinary humans. A young girl stumbles into this world, because, for reasons she doesn’t understand, she has magical abilities. She learns who she really is during the course of the book.

This is a common enough premise for a fantasy novel, when stated this broadly.  Some reviewers have complained about this series being derivative of other universes (Harry Potter, Star Wars…). That’s not necessarily a bad thing. For example, George Lucas took elements of the classic hero’s tale for the original Star Wars trilogy. And let’s not get started on Shakespeare… The artfulness and the enjoyment come from how this is executed.

First, Clare has built a coherent and convincing world in which the magical beings (demons, vampires, werewolves, etc.) have a place in the world that makes sense. It’s a challenge for an author to take mythological creatures with so much historical and cultural baggage and make them believable in the world of the book. Clare has done a credible job of building this world.

Second, the characters and the chemistry between characters have to shine; for me, there were occasional glimmers in this book. The primary characters evolve during the course of the book, although the secondary characters are more static. There’s sometimes good comradery between the protagonist and her friends. I wasn’t as convinced about the romantic aspects of the plot. Most of the characters have the same “voice” in dialogue; that is, the characters all have similar vocabulary and speaking styles. This is a disappointment, because one way to distinguish characters from one another is by the way they speak.

The plot moves quickly and through a variety of locations. Clare has a good eye for descriptions, both of locations (real and imaginary) and many, many secondary characters (human and non-human). Plot reversals and surprises keep the reader guessing until the end of the book. The book comes to a satisfying enough conclusion, while leaving plenty of dangling plot threads for the next book.