UCI Writing Project Summer Intensive: Book Club Letter #2: Character

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Dear Book Club,

I am reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.  I absolutely love series novels.  I don’t know why, but for some reason I love to torture myself by getting involved in a series novel right when they come out.  There is something about waiting for that next novel to come out that makes me happy.  When it is finally released, there is the wonderful moment where I can gobble the book down - I realize as I write this that it sounds like I have some sort of literary eating disorder.  But I digress...

What interested me in this book was not only the fact that it was a series novel, but also that it took place in New York City.  I love New York.  I was pleasantly surprised by the characters I met when I began the book.  In particular, I am intrigued by “Clary.”   

Clarissa “Clary” Fray is not your typical teenager.  She is intrigued by the artsy, unique, bohemian side of life.  Her best friend, Simon, is in a band.  They frequent a club called Pandemonium and attend poetry readings at coffee shops in Brooklyn.  Clary is a tiny red-head who is continually comparing herself to her mother, Jocelyn.  Clary believes that she is “Raggedy Ann to her mother’s Barbie doll.” With a face full of freckles, she believes she is destined to be “cute” and never beautiful like her mother.  Not only is her mother gorgeous, but she is also an extremely talented artist.  Clary loves to draw, but is always crumpling up her drawings, feeling that they are never as good as her mother’s works which cover the walls of their home.  

Clary feels as though she is living in the shadow of her mother and does not understand why she knows nothing of her mother’s past.  She hates that she has never known her grandparents.  Clary is also curious as to how her mother and father met.  Clary’s father, a decorated military soldier, was killed in a car accident before she was born.  Although there is a picture of him in their living room and Jocelyn keeps his medals, a lock of his hair, and their wedding rings in a box, Jocelyn has not shared anything about him with Clary.

From the very beginning of the novel, we see there is something different about Clary.   She witnesses a murder of a young man by a group of teenagers.  The fact that she is the only one who can see these individuals is perplexing to say the least.  They speak of demons and of “Night Children” and they call Clary a “mundie.”  I think as I progress in the story we will see quite a bit more of these characters.  

I find myself hoping for answers to Clary’s questions.  I wonder if her father is still alive somewhere.  I wonder if he may be the key to why Clary is suddenly seeing things that “normal” people can not.  I really hope to see Clary come into her own and stop comparing herself to her mother. 

Until next time,

Danyelle