The book was quite addicting. The writing wasn’t spectacular, but I liked the characters, so it balances out for me. And the witty dialogue was great.

Many people, the people who hate the book anyway, say the story isn’t original and was borrowed from the Harry Potter series. As I was reading, I found this was true.

I think every fantasy book gets compared with Harry Potter, because Harry Potter is such a popular and universal book. Everybody can relate to these books. And, this causes the series to live forever and remains something unforgettable, and thus, becomes compared to other books.

Also, I heard that Cassandra Clara wrote some Harry Potter fan fiction or something. So maybe the Mortal Instruments series could have been intended as what-do-I-read-after-I'm-done-with-Harry-Potter kind of book.

However, there were parts in the book that were simply, without doubt, glaring with Harry Potter resemblance. I won’t talk about the similarities, because that would give away some spoilers, but my main point is some parts were way too identical. If I list them here that would give away spoilers, so I won't.

Another thing was that there were twists in the story, but they didn’t catch me by surprise. There were some clues thrown right at my face, and it was just so easy to guess what was going to happen. So, I was expecting them eventually, and it ended up that when the character faced that part, he/she was so much more surprised than I was. This basically decreased my reading experience (by a lot), and I was like to the character, "Come on, just get over it. It's pretty obvious, you know?"

Also, I didn’t for the most part like the ending (well, actually I didn't like it at all). I actually guessed the "big twist" at the end--too predictable, typical, and straight out of Star Wars.

So, overall I was pretty disappointed, but I think I would read the next books in the series, just because I'm curious to know what is going to happen next.