Hey, everyone! Welcome to the City of Bones Book Discussion! I’m so glad you could join me! Over the next five weeks, I’m bringing on some awesome-ness to spice up your life! That’s right, I’m about to get the party started, but I have to set a few ground rules first (*trying to make a stern face*). This is how each week will play out:

• Each week I will do a detailed discussion of the plot of that week’s chapters (every Monday!). I will also highlight characterization, quotes, favorite parts, random scenes, and ask/answer questions.
• Argh, thar be spoilers ahead, matey!! While each week will be spoiler-free for the next chapters in the book, all of the previous chapters I’ve read will become free game. So to keep this discussion fun for readers who have not read the amazing series try to keep your comments spoiler-free, from the next chapters, as possible.
• At the end of each post, questions will be asked. Feel free to participate every week! We’d love to hear your opinion but you don’t have to answer everything. The questions are only there as guidelines but I’d love to read your tangents on that week’s chapters. And if you feel totally inspired about this book, as much as I am, you could always discuss your own opinion in a guest post: just fill out the form HERE.

For an entire schedule of our discussion (or just in case you’ve missed a post), you can go HERE. And I am also giving away a copy of City of Bones, to enter the contest, go HERE. Finally, on to the moment you’ve all been waiting for. *drumroll*

Chapter 17: The Midnight Flower

This has got to be my most favorite chapter of the entire book.  Jace and Clary go up to the greenhouse to hold a picnic in celebration of Clary's birthday.  They both share birthday stories of when they were small, Jace wanting to take a bath in pasta (it was "Slippery" (310)) and Clary wanted to go around the dryer.  While they rambled on, "suddenly one of the tightly closed buds began to quiver and tremble.  It swelled to twice its size and burst open" (312).  The flower only blooms at midnight, a sight so beautiful that Jace wanted to share with Clary.

"Happy birthday, Clarissa Fray" (312).  Jace gives her a witchlight as a present.

Clary finally works up the courage to ask what Simon wanted to know before, "Have you and Isabelle ever-- dated?" (314).  Jace just saw Isabelle as a friend, nothing more.  Then, Jace suggests they go down from the greenhouse.  They both get up to leave.  She moved away from the knife that was on the floor and "he put a hand out to steady her, just as she turned to apologize, and then she was somehow in the circle of his arm and he was kissing her" (315).  Wow, that's all I have to say.  It was a very adorable kiss, until Hugo, Hodge's bird, decides to ruin it by making his entrance.

They make it down from the greenhouse; Jace walked her to Clary's bedroom door.  Jace starts kissing her again (yeah, it was a steamy chapter) and Simon walks out of his bedroom.  "In future, Clarissa... it might be wise to mention that you already have a man in your bed" (317).  Well now there's a situation.  Simon, of course, gets upset.  He doesn't like how Clary gives her googly-eyes all to Jace, he thought she was better than that.  Everyone can tell he's just jealous.  "I've been in love with you for ten years, so I thought it seemed like time to find out whether you felt the same about me.  Which, I guess, you don't" (320).  He walks out on her to return home.  Clary mopes in her bedroom, upset with both boys.

She looks at her sketchpad, running her hand across one of the pages, Jace with wings.  "Her fingers had touched not dry paper but the soft down of feathers" (322).  She draws a tea cup this time, sketching a rune in the corner.  She is able to grab it and pull it from the paper, having the cup form into something solid.  She may be on to something here.

Chapter 18: The Mortal Cup

Now readers get to see Jace's side of the story, sort of.  Jace is in his room, skulking.  Clary was knocking on his door, demanding to be let in and show him something.  "It made sense after what he'd said to her.  Words were weapons... and he'd wanted to hurt Clary more than he'd ever wanted to hurt a girl before" (324).  Clary got Jace to shut up for a second, while she explained that she may have a clue to where the Mortal Cup was hidden. 

She shows him the coffee cup that comes out of the sketchpad and explains that this was how her mother must have done it.  She drew the deck of cards for Madame Dorothea; must have hidden the Mortal Cup in one of the tarot cards in her apartment. 

Jace tells everyone to meet with them and to talk what to do next.  They may know where the cup is, this is a big deal.  Alec does not see it that way.  He wants to give the situation to the Clave, he doesn't want to put Jace in any danger.  "We're all in this together" (329) and they're going.  They just need a ride.

Clary grudgingly calls Simon, asking him to give them a ride in Eric's van.  He accepts but doesn't seem too happy about it. 

Clary and the gang make their way to Dorothea's.  They leave Simon in the car, making way for an easy get-away or maybe they just don't want to have him around :( .  Clary confirms to Dorothea that Valentine had, indeed, taken Clary's mother and he wants the Mortal Cup.  Clary explains that the Cup is in one of the tarot cards.  Dorothea doesn't really believe her and thinks she is calling her a liar.  She gives Clary the card to make her look a fool but instead, with the use of Jace's stele, Clary grabs within the card and takes out the Cup.  The card "turned to ash that sifted away between her fingers to the carpeted floor" (348).

If you could draw the exact rune that Clary did on any painting, that made it come to form, what painting would it be?