Perustopia Book Club discussion

Hey guys! So i've been watching a lot of booktube and am sort of tempted to start reading Cassandra Clare's books. I started Infernal Devices a couple months ago but I quit because I was tempted by other books lol. Anyway did you guys really like it? I've had trouble finding books I really love.
Also what order do you reccomend reading them in? I started reading Infernal devices because it was the prequal and I was scared of reading two different series in a mixed order, but what do you think?

Thanks and sorry for the long post lol

Don't listen to me but


I feel like you should read the infernal devices
Before the mortal instruments 😊😊

Emmmabooks just put up a video about this. She lists the best ways of reading all of Cassandra Clare's books. I definitely agree with her explanations and reasons she gives. I recommend you check that out.

The plot of the mortal instruments was great but what keeps me from recommending it to anyone is the central romance of the story. I'm sorry. I know that a lot of people like the romance and dilemmas of Jace and Clary but for me it became a headache really quickly. I used to skip two or three paragraphs, sometimes an entire page to move along with the story instead of having to read about their romance. For me it really pulled the story down from what it could have been. But that is just the way I feel. If you have no problem with overly long and repeated sections of boring love story sub-plot in books, then by all means read it.

I answered this exact question yesterday, so I'll just repeat what I said in the other thread.


I can't fathom why anyone would want to read glorified Harry Potter wish-fulfillment fan-fiction, much less pay for it—especially considering it is well known that Cassandra Clare has always been, and continues to be, an unapologetic plagiarist, dating back to when she got banned from fanfiction.net for plagiarizing Rowling's source material for her Draco Trilogy.

In fact, other than the British twat whom plagiarized Twilight, Clare is probably the best example of an author plagiarizing a well known and well liked series and gaining success from it (unlike Kaavya Viswanathan, whose career as an author ended the second people figured out that she was ripping, and slightly changing, passages of text from nearly every well known YA novel on the market).


Plagiarism is just one of the many reasons I dislike her. With minimum Googling, I could easily find ten sources like this one:

http://alli6.tumblr.com/post/47193982...

—detailing about her various controversies.

But even if you are someone who can separate the author from their work (I am not one of those people; I stopped being a fan of Rowling's after she proved herself to be a colossal hypocrite regarding refugees), you should still skip this series, because there is enough wrong with it that you don't even need to take the author's shady past into consideration when deciding whether or not you should give it a chance.

When you have the time, you should definitely read this:

http://impishidea.com/reviews/the-neg...

—the user did an excellent job in pointing out the main flaws of the first book (the person did this with all the books, in fact).

ok, so if you're going to read it (which I recommend because those books give me life) read them in publishing order! I actually read The Mortal Instruments before The Infernal Devices and you WILL get spoiled!!! Because of that in the first book I already figured what will happen in last so I spent whole TID crying. Also if you read The Infernal devices before The Mortal Instruments I feel like you will get spoiled even more. I actually just remembered that emmmabooks on youtube has recently done video discussing all that in depth so I would definitely recommend watching it.

I was actually recently struggling with this same issue! I would recommend starting with TMI, then The Infernal Devices, AND THEN The Dark Artifices. That's what Cassandra Clare herself recommends as well. Even though The Mortal Instruments might not be the best out of all the Shadowhunters stories, it certainly is the best starter to the world!

I read TID before TMI and I don't regret anything. When you read TMI, you see characters from TID and you make a lot of links and it makes everything SO much more interesting in my opinion!!!

Read TMI 1-3, TID 1, TMI 4, TID 2, TMI 5, TID 3, TMI 6, TDA 1-3

When I first read them, I was marathoning all the Shadowhunters books. So, my way of reading it was:

TMI 1-3 (City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass)

TID (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess)

TMI 4-6 (City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire)

The reason I did this is because in the last TMI books, characters from TID appear, so you will not really get spoiled. I wouldn't, however, recommend reading it that way if you have a horrible long term memory or if you're going to take your time reading the Shadowhunters series, since by the time you've read TID, you've completely forgotten everything about TMI. If you have one of said problems I would recommend reading them in publication order:

TMI 1-3 (City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass)

TID 1 (Clockwork Angel)

TMI 4 (City of Fallen Angels)

TID 2 (Clockwork Prince)

TMI 5 (City of Lost Souls)

TID 3 (Clockwork Princess)

TMI 6 (City of Heavenly Fire)

Then, there are the short stories, which I would recommend reading before TDA:

The Bane Chronicles

Tales from the Shadowhunters Academy

And finally TDA 1-3. But never EVER read TDA before reading all the books I mentioned before. If you do not want to read the short stories it's fine, but if you do, read them before you read TDA.

OMG PLEASE READ THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS IT IS THE BEST BOOK SERIES YOU WILL EVER COME ACROSS!!

The order is basically what everyone has said already but rewriting makes me so happy :)

These are the books to read IN THIS ORDER, for the MORTAL INSTRUMENTS SERIES:
1. City of Bones
2. City of Ashes
3. City of Glass
4. City of Fallen Angels
5. City of Lost Souls

THEN BEFORE READING CITY OF HEAVENLY FIRE YOU MUST READ THE INFERNAL DEVICES SERIES, OR YOU WILL FIND SPOILERS.

6. Clockwork Angel
7. Clockwork Prince
8. Clockwork Princess

THE BEST BOOK NOW

9. City of Heavenly Fire

ALSO THE OTHER BEST BOOK - THESE 2 NEXT BOOKS ARE PART OF THE DARK ARTIFICES SERIES.

10. Lady Midnight

ANOTHER BEST BOOK WHICH I NEED TO READ WHICH IS NEXT IN THE SERIES

11. Lord of Shadows

Finished TMI and TID so currently reading Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. This post is old, but since I'm currently reading the books myself, I really want to once again say how in my opinion it is the best way to read them. Cassandra Clare recommends this order herself.

I 100% beg you to read in publication order. Which is - City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, Clockwork Angel, City of Fallen Angels, Clockwork Prince, City of Lost Souls, Clockwork Princess, City of Heavenly Fire. Also I really really really REALLY recommend reading Tales from the shadowhunter academy before starting TDA (Lady midnight, Lord of shadows). You HAVE to read it, is so good, I'm almost done with it and I'm loving it. **you can also read the bane chronicles before city of heavenly fire or after but I never read them I was to eager to jump into CoHF and my book didn't arrive on time** The reason why you should read it in publication order, is because you will get a lot more feels and the immersion is better. After City of Glass each series TMI and TID just keep dropping hints and lines about each series referencing each other and then they intertwined and it is amazing. So yes - publication order please.

The Book Crusader wrote: "I answered this exact question yesterday, so I'll just repeat what I said in the other thread.


I can't fathom why anyone would want to read glorified Harry Potter wish-fulfillment fan-fiction, mu..."

This. I read 4 books of TMI and they were awful. The writing is not good and then I found out about her plagiarism and was so mad I gave her one cent of my money -_-

You should defiantly read them they're amazing! And you should read them in publication order.

City of Bones
City of Ashes
City of Glass
Clockwork Angel
City of Fallen Angles
Clockwork Prince
City of Lost Souls
Clockwork Princess
City of Heavenly Fire
The Bane chronicles(can be read at anytime not mandatory)
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy( not mandatory should read before lady midnight though would highly recommend)
Lady Midnight
Lord of Shadows

I think I got all of them sorry I'm out and doing this off the top of my head.

^^^^ reading it in publication order will make sure you don't get spoiled