City of Bones

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-21-city-of-bones/

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OK, so teens LOVE these books and people my age HATE Cassandra Clare for being a cyberbully. I didn't love it, but I also can't bring myself to hate Clare for being a cyberbully, because who among us has not cyberbullied??? Be honest. OK, maybe YOU haven't, but I have definitely been a dick to people on the internet.

I'm about to be a dick on the internet right now, actually.

Anyway, I get why teens like this book. It's like... clever-ISH. All the snark might seem funny & original if you hadn't already spent decades consuming similar media. If you HAVE, it's kind of stale. The boys sound cute. It has ~edgy openly gay characters~ (take that, Twilight!)

Everything about it seems like she's kind of regurgitating tropes from different fantasy/horror books/TV shows. It's not terrible, but it's also not very fresh or compelling. Certainly not enough to get me to pick up the next FIVE books in this series.

Anyway, this is not the WORST teen bestseller I've ever read. But it's not the best, and definitely not good enough for me to recommend this to adults.

My favorite part was the SURPRISE INCEST because haha, what?! But even that is not particularly fresh. It just feels like she read a lot of VC Andrews growing up. Which I would bet you $5 she did.