City of Fallen Angels

The Mortal Instruments, Book 4

By: Cassandra Clare

Narrated by: Ed Westwick, Molly C. Quinn

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

City of Fallen Angels take up where City of Glass left off. With Valentine out of the way, Clary thought she and Jace could finally be together--but when someone starts murdering the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine's Circle and leaving their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to destroy the new peace between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, she realizes the past can never be left entirely behind. As the Shadowhunters scramble to find out what's really going on, Jace breaks off all communication with her, refusing to tell her why. Desperate to help him, Clary plunges into solving the mystery, coming ever closer to a secret whose revelation may mend her relationship with Jace--or rip it apart forever. Meanwhile, when Camille Belcourt, the elegant bloodsucker who used to rule New York's vampire clans with an iron fist, returns to the city determined to re-establish her control, a vampire war is born. Only Simon--the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side--can decide the outcome; too bad he's caught up in his own complicated love life and wants nothing to do with Downworld politics! Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels.

Listen to more in the Mortal Instruments series.

©2011 Cassandra Claire LLC. All rights reserved. (P)2011 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

The narrators!

I don't know what they were thinking using an awful British guy to reason Simon's story. Hello! Simon is not British! You can't understand half of what the guy says. The female narrator is just as bad. Doesn't she know how to do any voices besides a little girls? Jeez she doesn't even change tones from Clarey to Jace. I've listed to tons of audiobooks but these narrators have to be two of the worse.

Not as good as the first 3, plus narration issues

SPOILER ALERT:
This novel is about 2 1/2 stars out of 5 in my book. The first 2/3 was soooo slow. Also, she could have given us more time with Jace and Clary together. I didn't get enough of that, so I had a hard time empathizing. Supposedly this novel takes place 6 weeks after CoG, but we never see them happy together at all in this book except for one scene in the training room. So, I couldn't feel bad about what was happening to them. Cassie totally let me down in that respect. The first set of novels was filled with a lot of different plot points, plus Jace and Clary's plight to be together. But, we get to see them together for about 5 minutes at the end of CoG and when CoFA opens, Jace is already dealing with possession about 5 minutes in. So, I just never felt they were a couple in my head. At least in the last series, you could feel how much they wanted to be together. But, barely seeing them together and Jace's stand-offishness in this book, I didn't feel that same pull.

I finished the book and was like "Oh well. There will be two more books of them trying to get back together and then they'll eventually be together. And, if they're not, well - she hasn't really given us anything of the good part of their relationship to miss.

Narration: I hate to say it, but this is the most awfully narrated book I've come across on Audible yet. When Ed was speaking, you couldn't differentiate b/w any of the male characters, except for Jace, who for some reason sounded like an unintelligent Brooklyner. Even when Ed had to speak girls' voices, there were no attempts to feminize them.

Molly was a little better in that the female voices were slightly discernable, but when moving to male voices, there was no effort to try to make the voice masculine.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which character was talking. Except for Jace - then I was just annoyed.

Also, they pronounced stele different in this book than in the other three.

Great story, horrible narrator

The story is great but the female narrator, is absolutely awful. Her pronunciation is terrible and not just on names and places but on everyday words (hay-mer, instead of hammer, really?) I like the guy's voice but the british accent just kind of throws me off.

Awesome story, terrible narration...

Would you listen to City of Fallen Angels again? Why?

I'd be more likely to read the book than listen to it again, the narration is just BAD.

What did you like best about this story?

I love seeing the characters again, and finding out more of their history.

How could the performance have been better?

Natalie Moore should've had this. Dual narration is a great idea, but only with good narrators. Next time, don't get narrators just because they are popular at the moment, or God forbid, just because they LOOK like the characters they read for! Simon is not British, for God's sake! And neither is any other male in the book. I could understand if this were part of The Infernal Devices, but it isn't, and please, Audible, don't get any ideas about sticking him on that series.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Scenes between Clary and Jocelyn were good, nice mother/daughter interaction. Izzy and Simon were cute at the end, as well.

Any additional comments?

Seriously, get Natalie Moore back in the studio to re-record this, and offer it as a Free for Members or something for those of us who bought this horrible version.

ED WESTWICK!!

I wish Ed Westwick had read the entire book. Molly did well, but there were many word mispronunciations. Which was a problem in the last book. The problem with having two narrators is that they didn't have the same style of voices for most of the characters. And certain words like Idris were not pronounced the same which throws you out of the story.

Love this series!

Don't keep changing the readers in a series. Ed Westwick was great though! the other girl sounds like she has a cold.

Narrators

The female narrator is awful. You are very aware she is reading and she has no inflection. She does zero voice work.

great books

These are really good books for teen and adults. I read them a long time ago and decided would be nice to listen to for my commute to work. I enjoyed them just as much ther second time.

City of Fallen Angels

What made the experience of listening to City of Fallen Angels the most enjoyable?

Molly Quinn. I adore her. Ed Westwick, however, is NOT good. He's narrator for quite a few of Clare's books and I really don't care for him.

What does Ed Westwick and Molly C. Quinn bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Ed Westwick brings a mouthful of mush.

Mixed performance

The male narrator was very good. Although if you have been listening to the entire series the accents given to the characters kind of throws you off. Not consistent at all. The female narrator was GOD AWFUL. So bad. Just nothing good at all.

You can tell the author is maturing in her writing although it still comes off as awkwardly blunt and childish in some areas.

I will say this: she is a master at romance. The romance scenes (which are a bit excessive) are still very well done.