Review- City of Bones (Audio book)

Title: City of Bones

Author: Cassandra Clare

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Rating: 2/5

Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder-much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing-not even a smear of blood-to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. Buy why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...

My thoughts:

I have read so much about this book on the blogs until the point of "I need to get this book to find out what everyone is raving about!" The opportunity arose when I was driving my car from Virginia to California and I decided to get the audio book version. I had only listened to one audio book before City of Bones and I really enjoyed the experience. Knowing I would have a lot of listening time on my hands, I also got the City of Ashes audio book.

Listening to an audio book and reading a physical book are two very different experiences and can dramatically shape your opinion of the book depending on the reader. Physically reading a book allows the reader to make their own voices in their head and gives them time to imagine the setting, the tone and the pace. But when an audio book, all that is determined by the reader.

City of Bones audio book has a terrible reader. She made all the girl characters sound like they were wining and all the male characters sound too girly. She also didn't have much conviction behind her voice. When Clary was supposed to be screaming or yelling, she would hardly raise her voice. When there was action or someone was supposed to be out of breath, she talked the same way as the rest of the book. It was a very odd experience.

I had already known what to expect of the story since I had read Clockwork Angel, so I already knew about the different types of creatures. They story was definitely exciting and there was a lot of action but because of the reader I had a hard time feeling the chemistry between Clary and Jace, not that I should really want to knowing how it ended. The end left me really wanting to know what was going to happen with Clary and Jace and if her mom would wake up again.

Overall, I found City of Bones to be very addictive, constantly wanting to know what happened next. The story was very good, but as far as the audio book version goes, I would recommend that it's to be read instead of listened to.