City of Lost Souls

Mortal Instruments, Book 5

By: Cassandra Clare

Narrated by: Molly C. Quinn

Length: 16 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

The New York Times best-selling Mortal Instruments continues - and so do the thrills and danger for Jace, Clary, and Simon.

Can the lost be reclaimed? What price is too high to pay for love? Who can be trusted when sin and salvation collide?

Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.

©2012 Cassandra Claire, LLC. (P)2012 Simon & Schuster

Clary+Jace+Sebastian = An Amazing Plot!

I don’t know about you, but putting the three of them together seems to work extremely well. To be honest, there are some relationships in this book I just don’t really care about, especially Maia and Jordan. They are simply boring and can’t seem to fit into this book at all. But all of this is fine as long as the story of Clary and Jace is still good. And it was. They have one of the most torturing, yet fascinating relationships I’ve ever read. As for Sebastian……I don’t even know where to start. He is possibly the best villain ever created. Charming, intelligent, manipulating, handsome, cunning…….a true mastermind. Overall, I am still a huge fan of The Mortal Instruments and cannot wait for the last installment, City of Heavenly Fire!

Molly C. Quinn is a total disaster! Why doesn’t Simon & Schuster ever listen to us? She had already ruined City of Fallen angels for me and now this? All the characters sounded the same to me and everything that came out of her mouth was unbearable! Please change the narrator for the next book!

A let down

Would you try another book from Cassandra Clare and/or Molly C. Quinn?

Another book from, Cassandra I am all over but if it is narrator is Molly then I will read instead of listen.

Would you be willing to try another one of Molly C. Quinn’s performances?

no, I found her to be very distracting. I had to pay attention so hard to tell the differences in the male and female voices that I honestly cant tell you what really happened in the book.

Was City of Lost Souls worth the listening time?

It took me forever to finish listening to it and I still have no clue what happened really. I was too busy trying to figure out who was talking at that moment, I found myself rewinding alot!!!!

Any additional comments?

Before you buy listen to the sample. It may just be me, I do have some hearing problems but This was the worst I have ever heard before. I love my audio books and love this series and it really does pain me to have to leave a bad review. Im off to the store to buy the actual book and try this again.

Need a new Narrator....

Would you try another book from Cassandra Clare and/or Molly C. Quinn?

I enjoyed the books by Cassandra Clair and I look forward to the next story, but the narrator must be changed. I do not enjoy listen to her, she does not change the voices of the characters in the story. Because of this you often lose sight of which character is speaking. I do not know why Natalie Moore was taken off the series but she should be brought back, or at least someone else with better story telling skills.

Would you be willing to try another one of Molly C. Quinn’s performances?

No.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes.

Awful narrator

I think this is one of the best books in the series, but Molly Quinn makes listening to it almost unbearable.

Should have stopped at book 3

SPOILER ALERT!

If I were rating this book separate from the first 3 in the series, I'd probably give it 4 stars. However, it's really difficult to read through 4 books that deal with the same general plot repeatedly - boy and girl love each other but can never be fully together. If there were 6 books involving Clary and Jace ultimately being together in the 6th book, I could handle that. But in the case of this series, it's like books 1-3 were their own series of Clary and Jace trying to be together and ultimately ending up that way after many trials. However, it is really this: after book 3, Clary and Jace are together and are then really can't be together because of other forces. After book 4, Clary and Jace are together and are then really can't be together because of other forces. After book 5, Clary and Jace are together and are then really can't be together because of other forces. It's extremely frustrating and repetitive.

When this book finally makes it to film, Sony would do good to stop the films after book 3.

Additionally, I get that the incest was a major factor in book 1, but for it to pop up again in book 5 with a different scenario is excessive.


The book itself was well written with lots of action, hence 3 stars.

Narration:
This narrator isn't horrible. However, I find two aspects of it very frustrating when listening to the book:
1) Very little differentation between characters: I have a hard time telling the difference between male and female, and then between same-gender characters. I wish there was more differentiation
2) The narrator reads the book without adding "humanness" to it. For example, she enunciates every. single. word. making the reading a bit choppy and slow. If she could read it how we like to hear things, that would have been more engaging.

PLEASE stop using this narrator

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Yes, the listening time was well spent. The plot moved along well and characters were further developed.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The plot twists of characters constantly getting life-ending injuries and then coming back to life, over and over again, is tiring. I understand that magic is involved, but the plot stops seeming believable if you can never really write off a character.

What didn’t you like about Molly C. Quinn’s performance?

She has no depth of performance. All the characters sound the same and the supernatural characters all sound hokey and forced. And she mispronounces characters' names and technical terms in the Mortal Instruments world in different ways from book to book. It is painful to listen to.

Was City of Lost Souls worth the listening time?

Yes, if not for the performer.

Any additional comments?

Bring back the reader from the second and third books!!

Great story, terrible narrator....again!

The story was pretty good but all of the audio books, besides the first one, should be scrapped & re-recorded with new narrators! I think I would have enjoyed the series much more if I didn't have to fight the disgust for the narration.

A let down

Would you try another book from Cassandra Clare and/or Molly C. Quinn?

Another book from, Cassandra I am all over but if it is narrator is Molly then I will read instead of listen.

Would you be willing to try another one of Molly C. Quinn’s performances?

no, I found her to be very distracting. I had to pay attention so hard to tell the differences in the male and female voices that I honestly cant tell you what really happened in the book.

Was City of Lost Souls worth the listening time?

It took me forever to finish listening to it and I still have no clue what happened really. I was too busy trying to figure out who was talking at that moment, I found myself rewinding alot!!!!

Any additional comments?

Before you buy listen to the sample. It may just be me, I do have some hearing problems but This was the worst I have ever heard before. I love my audio books and love this series and it really does pain me to have to leave a bad review. Im off to the store to buy the actual book and try this again.

Should have stopped at book three!

What did you like best about City of Lost Souls? What did you like least?

I haven't really liked much of this book. The narrator is one of the worst ever. When we listened to book four we at least had the man who changed up his voice and had an interesting accent (except his voice for Simon, which was horrible) but this narrator had no depth or emotion. You should go back to the second book narrator. Also we want to scream every time she says Steelie!!! Doesn't the author listen to the Audiobook ever?

Would you be willing to try another book from Cassandra Clare? Why or why not?

Not sure-it's gotten pretty boring!

Love the Story<3 Naration could be better.

While Ms Quinn has a pretty voice, she does not have vocal diversity. I enjoyed the performances of Ari Graynor and Natalie Moore substantially more, and I truly miss Ed Westwick. He is fantastic!! I was disappointed he wasn't included for this recording.