A book that i have recently read (and thoroughly enjoyed) is The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. She is the author of the Mortal Instruments series, Infernal Devices trilogy, and coauthor of the Bane Chronicles with Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson. Clare also wrote The Shadowhunter's Codex with her husband Joshua Lewis. Clare and Lewis live together in western Massachusetts.
This fictional book brings together the history of angels and demons, and the ancient myths of vampires werewolves, and shadow hunters to modern day New York. The main character of this book is Clary Fray, who lives in downtown Brooklyn with her mother, Jocelyn, in an apartment. Everything was normal until Clary started drawing a strange symbol over and over again, everywhere. When the demons that Jocelyn has been trying to escape from finds her, Clary is at a coffee shop with her best friend Simon. She meets a Shadowhunter named Jayce who follows her to her house after she receives a phone call from her mother.
'"Don't come home! Do you understand me, Clary? Don't you dare come home. Go to Simon's house and stay there until i can-" A noise in the background interrupted her: the sound of something falling, shattering, something heave striking the floor-
"Mom!" Clary shouted into the the phone. "Mom are you all right?"
A loud buzzing noise came from the phone. Clary's mother's voice cut through the static: "Just promise me you wont come home. Go to Simon's and call Luke- tell him that he's found me-"' (pg. 45)
After this, Clary steals Jayce's sensor and runs home as fast as she possibly can. Upon entry she is attacked by a demon. Jayce and sees that Clary killed the demon, but not before it could bite her. He took her to the Shadowhunter's Institute so she could be healed as the demons carry deadly venom. Clary goes from an ordinary teenager to a ruthless Shadowhunter, willing to do anything to save her mom.
This book was important to me because I love books about fictional characters, and settings in an alternate reality where these characters can exist. Clare tells the story in such a way that makes you feel like you are in the story, and you can easily visualize everything that is happening with descriptions like: "They had the same jet black hair, the same slender eyebrows winging up at the corners, the same pale, high-colored skin." (pg. 68) and "His eyes when he looked at Clary were bright with dislike." (pg. 69)
To me, the theme of this book is religion. There are references to Christianity very frequently in this book. In a world full of angels and demons, settings in some churches, and allusions to the Bible. Shadowhunters do not follow any one single religion, so all religions support them when they go to battle. Near every church's altar, under the Nephilim rune, Shadowhunters will find weapons. This can be transferred to real life in the way that religion is factored in everyone's life, whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, or anything else, you have your own beliefs, and you interact with people of different beliefs every single day. This shows people of all different beliefs working together without bias for the common good, which is extremely relevant to societal issues. It is important because there is so much conflict with religion currently, that could all go away if we would just look past the fact that not everyone believes in the same thing, and that's okay.
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