Last night, I finished reading City of Glass by Cassandra Clare.  It’s the final book in the Mortal Instruments trilogy.

As with City of Bones and City of Ashes, City of Glass has made a place on my Favorites shelf.  I bet you’re wondering if the series ended up usurping the Twilight Saga’s or Harry Potter’s place in my heart.  The answer is: it’s kind of complicated. I’ll explain in a moment.

City of Glass was more intense than the first two books.  I had to take several breaks to let my heightened nerves relax.  I’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain the intensity of this series to people who ask me what the books are about and this is what I’ve come up with.  Imagine the frustration with the love triangle situation in Eclipse and add in the suspense and edge-of-your-seat feeling from the last three Harry Potter books, or even The Hunger Games.  Unlike the Twilight Saga or Harry Potter, the books don’t dealing with just one of those situations at a time; they deal with both intense situations throughout the entire series and it just escalates with each one! I was literally captivated by the story within the first chapter.

City of Glass is probably the best ending to a series I’ve ever read.  I know I haven’t read a lot of series, but I still feel that way.  The story or ending didn’t feel contrived.  It didn’t feel like it was forced to go a particular way to meet the author’s expectations.  The characters grew and they still acted like you expected them too. Most of the conflict was resolved, but some of it was left open for future possibilities.  The ending wasn’t too fluffy or over-the-top, yet it left you satisfied.  I’m very pleased with how things turned out and I can’t wait to read the stories again in the future.

With that being said, did the Mortal Instruments overtake the Twilight Saga and Harry Potter in the epic battle of vying for my affection?  Yes, the trilogy did overtake Harry Potter because I’m a sucker for romance.  The last few Harry Potter books had a little bit of romance, but not enough to satisfy me.  However, the funny thing is that the Harry Potter series will remain in the small bookcase in my bedroom with the Twilight Saga. Whereas, the Mortal Instruments have found a home in one of the bookcases with the other books in my home.  I just can’t seem to part with my Harry Potter books because they were such a huge part of my life for such a long time.

What about the Twilight Saga? In some ways, the Mortal Instruments did and in other ways, the trilogy didn’t.  Cassandra Clare’s a better author, in my opinion, but Stephenie’s growing; you can see that with The Host. Both Cassandra Clare and Stephenie Meyer make you feel as if you’re a part of the story.  The characters jump out and become real.  Cassandra Clare didn’t write the ending of City of Glass, so it was too fluffy. Whereas, let’s face it, Breaking Dawn was written that way–one big, novel-size epilogue.  But, I like over-the-top, fluffy endings (as long as it’s not a your-life-can-be-better-if-you-apply-the-moral-of-my-unrealistic-book-to-your-own-life kind of story, coughJackWeylandcough).  Whenever I watch movies or read books, they always end when the main characters get what they want or finally get together.  Most of the time, I want to read or know what happens to the characters after that.  Stephenie Meyer gave me that, which I loved.  I do agree, though, there’s something magical about leaving some things to the imagination and I liked the way Cassandra Clare did that.  However, because the Twilight Saga catapulted me head first into the world of reading and because I can still get excited about the Twilight Saga as if I were reading it for the first time, the Mortal Instruments won’t usurp its place in my heart.

Happy birthday, Jared and Ashley!

Yesterday was a busy day.   I was going to walk the 5K Race for the Cure with my friends, but I didn’t go because of situations with registering and I was physically unable to walk that far yesterday.  (Let’s just say you don’t want to know why; nothing serious, though.)  I still wanted to help, so I ended up donating the amount it would’ve cost me to register for the race.  It’s first time I’ve ever donated to an actual charity and it feels pretty good!

On Friday, I realized (or remembered) that my driver’s license expired on my birthday this year.  Yeah, my birthday was three weeks ago.  Luckily, I haven’t driven all that often since my birthday.  I’ve had one decent driver’s license picture; my very first one.  My last two were horrid because my hair was always in a bad cut or whatever.  I wanted to try to avoid that this time around, so I got my hair done yesterday.

I haven’t colored my hair since Carlee left for England because I didn’t have anyone else to do it and I couldn’t afford it either.  So, I decided to grow my hair out with my natural color.  I still want to grow my hair out, but I love coloring my hair because it gives it so much more depth.  So, since Carlee is back and I get a phenomenal rate again, I decided to color it even while I’m growing it out.  Carlee also shaped it since it had lost its shape and spiking ability about four weeks ago.  I’m pleased with the style and color, but I don’t think it’ll ever look as good as Carlee did it again.  Isn’t that the way it always is, though? Oh well!  Hopefully, my driver’s license picture will still turn out okay.

I also spent most of the day reading City of Glass and I finally finished it around 9:00 pm.  I’m so glad I finished it because I needed to know what happened and I needed the stories to release me from their spell, so I could sleep and have a normal life again.

Corey also took me to see the new Star Trek movie.  Wow! The movie was phenomenal!  Matt, one of my co-workers, had changed his Facebook status to: “Dear George Lucas: that’s how it’s done” after he saw the movie.  I chuckled when I read it, but after seeing the movie, I completely understand where he’s coming from.  The actors were fantastic.  They had the same manerisms as their counterparts in the original series and movies.  And, they even looked like younger versions of them.  The storyline was great too and there weren’t any continuity issues like a lot of prequels end up creating!  I’m so glad we saw it last night and would love to see it a second time.