City of Lost Souls: Mortal Instruments, Book 5

By: Cassandra Clare

Narrated by: Grant Cartwright, Eloise Oxer

Length: 17 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

Jace is now a servant of evil, bound for all eternity to Sebastian. Only a small band of Shadowhunters believe he can be saved. To do this they must defy the Clave. And they must act without Clary. For Clary is playing a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing is not just her own life but Jace's soul. Clary is willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

©2012 Cassandra Clare LLC (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic Reviews

"The Mortal Instruments series features a rare marriage of extremely intricate, fast-paced plotting with ample digressions into the emotional lives of characters we’ve come to care about deeply ... With a movie in the works, this is an excellent time for new readers to jump on board one of the most enjoyable series in YA. Smart, fun, and epic, these books are addictive for all the right reasons." ( Locus)

"The new queen of fantasy." ( The Wall Street Journal)

Enjoyable romance with violence

This continues the story of Jace, Clary, Simon and Sebastian. Can't wait for what should be the series final.

Amazing story but revolting narration

Any additional comments?

The story is so amazing but it has been horrendously ruined by disgusting narration. They overact everything. The woman has a boring voice to listen to but additionally you can hear the static noise in the background. Also the man... seriously? it is revolting to listen to someone swallow their saliva... I almost couldn't finish listening to the story and I grit my teeth while trying to hold back the bile.

Seriously good

I do not know how Cassandra manages to maintain the suspense through 5 books but she does it and more. She continues to build her characters who evolve and grow in complexity, inhabiting a world that is alive and vibrant and a little weird. Onward to book 6!

Eloise Oxer has ruined this for me.

What did you like best about City of Lost Souls: Mortal Instruments, Book 5? What did you like least?

Unfortunately I couldn't get more than twenty minutes in. Nothing to do with the writing, I wouldn't have got this far into the series if I didn't enjoy it, but the narrator is so painful to listen to, I'm going to have to wait until a better reading is found.

What was one of the most memorable moments of City of Lost Souls: Mortal Instruments, Book 5?

See above.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Grant was fine, though I preferred the gentleman from the previous book. Eloise on the other hand... Slow speaking, painfully slow. Dreary, stressing words seems more important than the story. The voice was so monotonous, I couldn't follow the story. She seems to breath words to attempt to make it more mysterious where it is just plain irritating. The last word in every sentence is breathed long, frankly weird.

Was City of Lost Souls: Mortal Instruments, Book 5 worth the listening time?

I may keep trying as I want to hear the book, but I certainly will avoid the narrator in future books.

Any additional comments?

Other ratings are based on previous books, and expectations for this book.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

struggled with performance

love Cassandra Clare but really struggled with Eloise Oxer. Found her so grating that I nearly stopped listening ☹️

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Good but tedious in parts

The whole series is amazing and the story has moved on however some of the clary and jace scenes are very tedious and quite boring in parts

Am looking forward to the next part :)

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great story

love the story .. not too sure about the narrators find Oxer voice a little harsh

I like the books.

It's seriously annoying that the narrators keep changing with each book. Each set has a different way of pronouncing character names, places, deamons and it's seriously annoying. The whole series should be redone with just one or a pair of narrators. These ones are slightly better than the last set because at least the woman in this one conveys tone but the fist one was best.

Enjoyed

Enjoyed listening to the story in this book looking forward to listening to the next story

Good book, very distracted by the female narrator.

I liked this book, I liked all of the other books in the series, but the narrators (most of them) let it down .. I have to speed up the book as they speak so slowly, probably for added intrigue or tension, I personally find it annoying. The male narrator in this particular book is good, I still speed him up too, though!

Issue with the actors

The book serious is amazing however the male actor in this audio book seems to swallow his saliva more and more often as you get through the book. I ignored it at first but after a while the cringing becomes unbearable. I also don’t know if the female actor was a good choice for this book as she was quite breathy with her reading. I might just be nip picking but the saliva and breathlessness issue really did grate on me.

Excellent

Additive read, narrators were good but they should have listened to the previous books because they got names and place pronouncing wrong which was a bit distracting, that said the book was excellent and i raced through it!

Disappointing and far fetched

I read the book series after watching the shadowhunters show on Netflix. Suffice it to say I was seriously disappointed with the book after seeing the potential that the story could have had- had it been written by a more capable author. Cassandra Claire's style of writing belongs more in a school book than a published novel, her excessive use of language devices stops being impressive and instead rather tedious after a few chapters. As well as this, the relationship between Clary and Jace just seems too far fetched to be attractive to any reader above the age of thirteen. The concept of a boy being an unapproachable jerk to everyone other than one girl is one that I've seen before in books- that I have thoroughly enjoyed many times before- but Jace simply comes off as rude and unnecessarily mean and Clary a complete idiot who doesn't realise things after multiple, obvious hints that the reader easily picks up on. Furthermore, the villains are far fetched and tedious and the only reason why I got to the fifth book is because I bought all six books in bulk and wanted to get my money's worth (and because after reading a long and admittedly boring book all it took was an unnecessary and clumsily written cliffhanger to convince me that the next book would be better). JUST DON'T READ OR LISTEN TO THIS BOOK, IT'S BORING AS HELL AND I HAD TO REFRIAN FROM SCOOPING MY EYEBALLS OUT WITH A RUSTY SPOON WHEN I REALISED I WASTED £12 ON THIS SERIES.