Raph calls the werewolves “Los Niños de la Luna.”  Man, can you imagine shouting that as a warning to someone?  Instead of just going “Shit, lob hombre!” you take the time to spout off a whole mouthful?  I swear to god, this book does not care about context or realism, just about how pretty a group of sounds can be. 

“I thought they hated each other,” she whispered to Jace. “Vampires and werewolves.”

Erm…maybe that explains why they busted in through the windows and are now growling and snarling at all the vampires?  Keep up, Clary.  Seriously, this line is only here so Jace can go on for a while explaining that they hate each other, while everyone continues to wait patiently for him to finish.  None of this is necessary.  We can see they hate each other quite plainly.  The book is stopping the action – literally – in order to give us information that we can already figure out on our own.

One of the werewolves shifts back to human– wait, what?  Yeah, I’m calling them shape-shifters from now on.  One of the shapeshifters changes back to human and says they’re after Clary.

And then guess what, guys!  THERE’S MORE FUCKING BANTERING BETWEEN CLARY AND JACE WHILE EVERYONE ELSE STANDS QUIETLY BY.  I swear to god, this books operate by the same time/space laws as comic books.  And most of the time it’s COMPLEATLY FUCKING POINTLESS asides.

The vampires say they can’t have Clary, so a big fight breaks out.

The noise was like nothing Clary had ever heard. If Bosch’s paintings of hell had come with a soundtrack, they would have sounded like this.

…Book, that’s not as descriptive as you think.  In fact, it tells me absolutely nothing.  Therefore, I’m going to imagine a choral arrangement with lots of sopranos and a brass-heavy orchestra for accompaniment.  It actually makes this scene marginally better.

The book then completely ignores the massive fight so Clary and Jace can sit off to the side of it and FUCKING BANTER.  This fight is given all the weight and importance of an action scene on a TV.  It’s not even there.  It has no impact on the characters, their emotions, their attitudes, their fears, or even their actions.

Trying to sneak through an alley?  BANTER!

Surrounded by vampires?  BANTER!

Shapeshifters break in?  BANTER!

Watching an epic batter where, at any moment, you could get dragged into the fray because it’s right next to you?  FUCKING BANTER!

There is no sense of these characters ever reacting in any emotional way.  They are not experiencing this plot, they are MSTing it.

The see Simon fleeing behind some curtins.

she yanked the drapes aside. They were slimy with mold

Mold is not slimy.  Mold is kind of powdery and fuzzy, but it’s not slimy.  In fact, there is no reason why the drapes should be slimy unless the vampires are doing something to them deliberately to make them slimy.  Slime requires moisture and, left alone, most things dry out over time rather than get wetter.

There’s a door behind the drapes but it’s locked.  They banter more.

Finally they are reminded that there’s a fucking fight going on behind them, as a shapeshifter charges at Clary.  She takes the knife that Jace gave her, shrieks, and throws it at the wolf.   It sticks in the wolf’s side.  Furthermore, it flies “wobbly but true,” which indicates that it went straight, without any spin.

Bullshit.  First of all, knives spin when you throw them, unless you deliberately use a straight throw.  The most natural technique, and the way an amateur would throw them, makes them spin.  Second of all, throwing takes practice, otherwise you’ve got a good chance of hitting with the hilt instead of the blade, because of that spin thing.  Third, the knife supposedly stuck in the wolf’s side.  Was he running at the girl sideways?  You can’t throw a knife at someone’s front, have it warp around, and hit that person’s side.  To get a knife to stick at all, you have to hit the target dead on, otherwise it’ll bounce off.  Yeah, you might scratch ‘em up really good, but it still won’t stick.

Jace gets the door open, then has to pause and pull Clary through, because…fuck all if I know.  What was Clary doing that she couldn’t notice the open door and run through it herself?  The text doesn’t care, and now I don’t either.

Jace uses magic (that he totally doesn’t do, because humans don’t do magic) on the door to keep the wolves from following them.  They run up the stairs and onto the roof.  They try and figure out how to get down from there, and Clary thinks up a rune for flying out of the blue.  No, really, it just pops into her head without any effort or knowledge on her part.

Look, I’m really fucking sick of characters that just automagically know stuff.  There is nothing wrong with characters that do this funny thing where they use their brains to figure shit out based on observations and life experiences.  But you wouldn’t know it reading YA books.  There, it’s as if admitting that a solution was actually reasoned out by the main character is a bad thing, therefore all solutions have to be handed down by the author-god.  I don’t get it.  I just honestly don’t get the hesitance to make the characters simply think of things on their own.  It’s baffling.

Clary doesn’t mention her new author-powers, so Jace thinks up a plan to use the vampires’ bikes instead.  They ride off the edge of the roof, and then the text does that annoying thing where there’s a scene-change break, but the next scene is just a continuation of the previous one.  Cheap, cheap, cheap tricks to create false suspense. 

Belatedly, Clary recollected something. “I thought you guys said only some of the vampire bikes could fly?”

Deftly, Jace steered them around a stoplight in the process of turning from red to green. Below, Clary could hear cars honking, ambulance sirens wailing, and buses puffing to their stops, but she didn’t dare look down. “Only some of them can!”

“How did you know this was one of them?”

“I didn’t!” he shouted gleefully, and did something that made the bike rise almost vertically into the air.

Really?  You didn’t?  Then you’re a fucking idiot.  THE BIKES WERE ON THE ROOF OF A TEN-STORY BUILDING!  How did they get there if they couldn’t fly?  It’s not like he couldn’t just say “duh, I used basic reasoning powers and observation.”  But instead of that, we get more assholery.

They fly around and Clary notices a train full of morning commuters.  I’m suddenly reminded of the fact that all this is supposed to be hidden from the world at large, which brings me to two points.  1) Jace, get the fuck off that thing, you’re breaking the masquerade.  2) Why is there a masquerade?  The fact that all this is secret is presented as a matter of course, but we’re not given a good reason for it.  We’re just supposed to assume that it should be like that.  Why?  If there are bad things out there nomming on humans, then humans should know in order to protect themselves.  I bet the hunters could get some army help.  Maybe blow up a few demons with some Big Ass Guns.  Even if they can’t kill the demons without magic help, they could contain/slow them down, or provide defense.  There could be reasons why no one wants to come out of the supernatural closet, but we’re never told what they are.  Instead, it’s just assumed that everyone will think hiding is best.  Well fuck you, book.  I think you’re better off telling everyone.  Give me a good reason why you’re not.

It’s just about dawn, and the bike that runs on demon energy suddenly sputters out in the daylight.  Apparently demons are anti-daylight now.  Who knew.  Anyway, now they have to crash-land.

bouncing and slamming over the uneven ground, whipping Clary’s head back and forth with neck-cracking force.

That’s actually extremely dangerous and could lead to life-long neck and back problems, chronic pain, decreased mobility, or (in the case of actual ‘neck-cracking force’) spinal injury.  Oh, wait, no, it’s just a euphemism.  She’s fine.  Because this book doesn’t care about words or what they mean.

Clary gets thrown off the bike.

She barely had time to curl herself into a protective ball, holding her arms as rigid as possible

Worst way possible to take a fall.  You want to be loose and large.  If you spread out, you take the force of a landing over a larger surface-area, which lessens the impact on any one part of your body.  Also, landing on your front is better than your back, because it protects your spine.  Curling up makes you compressed, which means any extra compression is just going to do damage.  (Note: This is only good for a relatively short, unexpected fall.  There’s other methods for dealing with a long fall, or for a deliberate drop.)

Oops, nope, actually she’s fine, just bruised up her arm.  Fucking book.  When she sits up, she finds Simon is back to being human again, and they hug in the parking lot.