City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare | Rating: ★★★★★

“I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, an angry, dark undercurrent to his voice. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left —?”

I can’t believe I’m almost done with my reread of the entire TMI series but here we are! Cassandra Clare still has me hooked all these years later and rereading the novels feels like I’ve been greeted by an old from. Onto one of my favorite novels in the entire series: this little guy is by far one of the funnest and darkest of the entire run; Cassandra as usual does the best with her plots.

Teenage angst, action, romance and mystery follow us–and in this installment we see even more descriptive locations that will leave us with hearts in our eyes just as much as our bones will chill by the events scattered about. In terms of suspense and comparison to the installments that came before it, City of Lost Souls rivals City of Glass.

In the aftermath of events in the previous book, our second to last installment picks up right where we left off. Mostly City of Lost Souls begins with one question: where is Jace? which follows into who is Jace, now? The answer is not simple, but what ever is?

Due to the attempts of Lilith in resurrecting him, Sebastian has been brought back from the dead and is now tied to Jace.

City of Fallen Angels (TMI #4) by Cassandra Clare | Rating: ★★★☆☆

“Hearts are breakable," Isabelle said. "And I think even when you heal, you're never what you were before".”

My reread of The Mortal Instruments, in preparation for the new television adaptation Shadowhunters, continues with City of Fallen Angels. Serving as the fourth book in the expanded series, we see our favorite Shadowhunters and Downworlders return in a new mystery set a brief time after the events of City of Glass. It is also the weakest book of the series but does a decent job at setting up for this second arch therefore it doesn't dampen my love for this incredible series.

Now that The Mortal War is over, Sebastian (or Jonathan) and Valentine are dead, and the truth has all been revealed, our favorite kids think that they can finally sleep safely at night. Now, they can head back down the path of whatever normal is meant to be–for some that means hunting, for some that means love, some that means acceptance, for the Lightwoods it means mourning the loss of Max and others it means training.

And then there’s avoidance. But we’ll get to that later. I’m going to start with characters.