RUMOR: Kevin Zegers cast as Alec in 'City of Bones'

MTV Hollywood Crush is reporting that Kevin Zegers (Gossip Girl) has been cast as Alec Lightwood in the film adaptation of Cassandra Clare's City of Bones.

BUT take this rumor report with a grain of salt, for Cassandra Clare has written that who she believed to have been cast as Alec was actually a British actor, but Zegers is Canadian. Oddly enough, I seem to be the only person who's caught this, so we'll wait on confirmation from Cassandra Clare, who's always keeping her fans up to date on casting via her Tumblr.

Jena Malone cast as Johanna Mason in 'Catching Fire'

It's official! Lionsgate announced via their official Hunger Games film page on Facebook that Jena Malone (Sucker Punch, Pride & Prejudice) has been cast as the District 7 tribute in the Third Quarter Quell, Johanna Mason!

This has been long speculated, and even reported that she had been offered the role, but now Lionsgate had confirmed it. Last night, though, Josh Hutcherson spilled on the Teen Choice Awards red carpet that she was in the film.

Thoughts?

Review | 'City of Lost Souls'

City of Lost Souls
Cassandra Clare
535 pg., U.S. hardcover
Simon & Schuster
5 stars | A+



From Goodreads:

The demon Lilith has been destroyed and Jace freed from captivity. But when the Shadowhunters arrive, they find only blood and broken glass. Not only is the boy Clary loves missing, so is the boy she hates: her brother Sebastian, who is determined to bring the Shadowhunters to their knees.

The Clave's magic cannot locate either boy, but Jace can't stay away from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith's magic has wrought - Jace and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other.

Only a few people believe that Jace can still be saved. Together, Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle bargain with the sinister Seelie Queen, contemplate deals with demons, and turn at last to the merciless, weapon-making Iron Sisters, who might be able to forge a weapon that can sever the bond between Sebastian and Jace. If the Iron Sisters can't help, their only hope is to challenge Heaven and Hell - a risk that could claim their lives.

And they must do it without Clary. For Clary is playing a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing not just her own life, but Jace's soul. She's willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost? What price is too high to pay, even for love?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.


I have loved these books since 2009, and still do, but the one thing I cannot tolerate is the over-usage of erotica. I mean, seriously, in a matter of life and death and loss, Jace's shirt slides up a little bit and Clary gets all flustered and turned on. Calm the hell down, Clarissa Fray, it's just a stomach. Just a forewarning, this review will contain spoilers to the entire Mortal Instruments series, including this one, as well as allusions to its companion/prequel series, The Infernal Devices.
WRITING:

• PACING -- The Mortal Instruments series is one that is very well-written. Honestly, I think that's what I love most about the series, besides it's mostly-astounding plots. So CoLS was no exception, and that really pleased me. The story follows the quick-pacing that has been going on recently in the series, although I think City of Bones and Glass are a little less fast-paced than the others. I started the book one night, read 200 pages, and then the next day read the other 335 pages, and I'm sure that's the case for most fans of TMI. It's just so enthralling and attention-sucking, and it requires your attention without really asking for it. 
• DIALOGUE -- The dialogue in TMI uses a lot of dark, witty humor. It's not really laugh-out-loud humor, but a kind of "oh, yeah, I get it" type. I probably laughed more at Fallen Angels than any of the others, including The Infernal Devices, so I was pretty let down that this book had less jokes, but I suppose I did like the seriousness of the story. There were some annoying, unrealistic pieces of dialogue, mainly from Clary and Jace, but we get those in every book, and while that's no excuse, I've grown accustomed to it. Magnus also has some weird remarks that just don't do anything, so that was also a disappoint, for I like Magnus, but I think that he's become so immature lately, but more on that later.
• ORIGINALITY -- Cassandra Clare definitely has a unique style of writing, unlike the author that I previously read a book from (Lissa Price, Starters). It's always refreshing to go back to Clare's books, because I know that she's got such intense, humorous, and then frightening writing that complements the pacing perfectly, and is able to grab you for such a long time and never let you go. That's really what I love about her. YOU ROCK, CASSIE CLARE. DON'T EVER CHANGE.

STORY:

It's time for my version of the summary! So after the events of Fallen Angels, Jace and Sebastian have disappeared, and it's become against Clave law to search for them, so, of course, the entirety of the main slew of characters do so. We've got Clary, Isabelle, Alec, Magnus, Simon, Jordan, Maia, and a little help here and there from Jocelyn and Luke, and even a return from Aline Penhallow, which was quite enjoyable. Clary finds out that she can't harm Sebastian (which she desires to do, oh so much) without hurting Jace, so she's treading on thin water in this book after being taken by Sebastian and Jabastian (the Sebastian-ized version of Jace) who have plotted to re-create the Mortal Cup, leaving Simon to group up with Alec, Magnus, and Isabelle. In their own little subplots, Alec constantly confronts Camille, who tells him that in order to have Magnus achieve mortality, he must kill Raphael, an ex-vampire leader, who, coincidentally, wants Camille dead. Big, happy vampire family, essentially. I love how Alec's storyline came to an end; the chilling revelation that Maureen (the Simon Lewis fangirl from Fallen Angels-gone vampire) has killed Camille, now making her the leader of the New York vampires. By the way, can someone confirm that Cassie Clare named her after her friend Maureen Johnson, author of The Name of the Star? Isabelle's plot revolves around her personal struggles, most of which having to do with her feelings for Simon. Simon loses his Mark of Cain in order to receive a sword from Raziel to kill Sebastian without killing Jace. The book ends with (of course) Sebastian fleeing the scene, Jace injured, and Clary in grief. Then again, would it be a TMI book without those things? Even though I gave the book 5 stars, I wouldn't say the plot is original. The books all have the same arc, so I feel no need to judge that. The best part of the TMI books, and the TIF books, is what's sandwiched in-between; all that juicy exposition and conflict. I totally believe that Zachariah is Will Herondale, beeteedubbs, anyone with me on that? The books all begin with something happening to Jace and Clary, Simon is thrown in there, Maryse is disapproving, the story goes on, and ends with some ultimate demonic battle, yadda yadda. It's the same old, so I hope to see something different in City of Heavenly Fire, but I doubt that will happen.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:

There are so many characters in this book; The Silent Brothers, The Iron Sisters, Maureen, Camille, Raphael, and the more important ones; Jordan, Maia, Simon, Sebastian. And those were just to name a few. I want to start off with Magnus's character development. He's always been this flamboyant, fun, lovable guy from the start, but I think that he has got more...annoyingly immature as the series went along. Now, I totally ship Alec/Magnus, and have nothing against LGBT-lit, so that being said, there's a difference between saying, "Well, being with Alec loosened him up a bit! And Magnus did the same for Alec! Like, duh!" and saying, "Magnus has grown more immature." I obviously think the latter. While I strongly believe that your partner shouldn't change you, I do believe that Magnus has changed for the worse. Regarding the development of other characters, I don't think that any of them have really developed. I mean, Isabelle has surely become a looser, likable character, but Alec remains irritatingly stoic. As far as Clary goes, she's definitely changed, but she still is that vulnerable hostage. In every book, regardless of the training she does with Jace, she always seems to be kidnapped or hurt in the climactic scene, and it has grown so annoying. But I think Isabelle Lightwood puts it perfectly, "'You're Clary Fray. You go charging into battle without knowing how the hell it's going to turn out, and then you get through it on sheer guts and craziness.'"

The final book in The Moral Instruments, City of Heavenly Fire, is set to be released March 19, 2014.

Review | 'Starters'

Starters
Lissa Price
352 pg., U.S. hardcover
Delacorte
4 stars | B+



From Goodreads:

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . . .


To start off, this is definitely a book that people will either incredibly love or kind-of-like. I doubt that anyone would really hate the book, but I have yet to be proved wrong. You can bet this review will be spoiler-filled, so if you haven't read Starters, I strongly recommend doing something else that's as equally as entertaining as this review, or you know, actually reading the book. Kthnxbai.
WRITING: 

• PACING -- Lissa Price debuts with a quick-paced, strongly appealing story with a plot that works with the pacing. Very rarely is quick-pacing valued with a plot as fresh and needing-complexity as this one, but Lissa Price pulled it off very nicely. Pacing can, at times, become a distraction in some books, and while Starters isn't entirely an exception, it definitely avoids that stereotypes in many cases. The only issue I have with the fast-pacing is the infrequency of it. While the book is entirely-fast-paced, the speed does change a bit, meaning it goes from a mild level of quick, to this extreme-Sonic-speed that leaves the reader wondering how a writer can tell a 350-page story very strongly with such quick-pacing. I felt that she was dishing the exposition out so quickly that I wondered if there would be anything else. The ending did end up being 30-pages of recuperation, which was kind of annoying and unnecessary, but unsurprising. The final 100 pages were interesting, though, and well worth the wait, what with the whole Blake-being-the-Old Man, Sara being killed, etc.
• DIALOGUE -- The dialogue in this book definitely was not a stand-out to me; not even in the slightest. I don't really have a lot to say about it, for it wasn't a big thing in this book, for the story was more dependent on actions rather than words, which was totally fine, in my opinion. That's not to say I was disappointed in the dialogue, sure I wish there was more, but I was okay with what I was given.
• ORIGINALITY -- It's always difficult to analyze the originality of an author's originality when it comes to writing. Obviously you're going to draw similarities to other authors, and Lissa Price is no different. I don't really think I can pinpoint which specific authors I could draw connections to, but I definitely experienced flashes of 'Whoa, I've...I've seen this writing, RIGHT?' throughout the story.

STORY:

The story of this book is sort of difficult to grasp without reading the summary, so I'll try to play it out from what I understood/liked from it. Okay? Alright. So it takes place in this post-war America where teenagers sell their bodies (in a non-sexual way; sexual contact would cross into illegality) to elderly people who want to re-experience the fun that teenagers really can. I'm not saying that elderly people can't have fun, but they aren't physically able to do some things that younger, more fit, people can. Callie does so, and her body winds up in that of an assassin, which is where the story really picks up and gets interesting. The assassin is meant to kill the senator to get a point across to the body bank (if you're not following along, they're the people who are in charge of renting bodies; i.e., who gets the body, when, how, who the body is, etc.), and Callie starts to uncover, via very The Host-like internal conversations with her renter, that the Prime Destinations (body bank--run by the Old Man) is up to no good. She finds out that they plan to sell the bodies of attractive people, and this causes a whole ruckus for various reasons. She discovers that her sort-of-kind-of-maybe lover, Blake, is being rented for the Old Man, which is BLERSHKGFH. So, that's kind of it, in a nutshell. The plot and story are very, very original, except for those little glimpses of The Host, which were kind of annoying, yet very helpful to the main character. My favorite scenes and ideas from the plot were the ideas of revisiting a teenage body, and Callie's willingness to rent her body out. Just her luck, her renter is trying to assassinate the government. Had this not happened, and Callie was just living as another woman, the story would have been 5x more boring. The plot arc isn't very clear, actually. I didn't think that resolution of the book had anything to do with the reason Callie initially rented her body out, and obviously Callie did find another reason to keep the body around (whether she had a choice or not), but I feel like she lost sight of her initial motivation, and whether that's Lissa Price's fault or not, I'm not sure.


CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT:
Callie develops a ton in this story, mostly with the help of her renter, whose name escapes me, although I'm fairly sure it was Helena. We'll just say it's Helena. Sorry if it isn't, I don't actually own the book, so I'm just trying to remember. She starts out as a bold, protective friend and sister, and ends up still protective and bold, but more learned in the government doings and that truly affects her personality and character a bit throughout the story. Callie becomes a more heroic, love-hate character, which makes her all the more realistic in a rather unrealistic setting. Her brother and friend, who we only really see a few times, do not experience much development, and it's hard to know who else did, seeing as most characters were rented out, so we never knew their true personality, which is why it's such a blow to Callie when she first found out Blake was the Old Man's rentee. I quite liked Blake, but he certainly didn't develop, even with another person inside him. I liked the Enders, though, they were pretty interesting. So, I suppose that's all I've really got to say in the development wing of this review, sadly. At least the protagonist developed, though, which is the main desire.


Starters is the first in a duo, and the sequel, Enders, is set to be released December 11, 2012. 

Lena Headey and Jared Harris join 'City of Bones'

Sorry it took me so long to post this! I haven't had access to a computer the past two days, which is why my post on Gao joining the cast of City of Bones was so crappy; I had to write it from HTML on my Kindle Fire. But I did find this news out the moment Cassie Clare announced it, if that helps...? Don't hate me. Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) and Jared Harris (Mad Men) have joined the cast of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones as Jocelyn Fray (Clary's mother) and Hodge Starkweather (dastardly librarian, he is), respectively.

THOUGHTS on all the CoB casting rush? Let me know in the comments below!

Godfrey Gao cast as Magnus Bane in 'City of Bones '

Model and actor Godfrey Gao was announced via Cassandra Clare's tumblr to be playing Magnus Bane, the pivotal warlock, in City of Bones.

Tony Shalhoub and Melissa Leo are rumored frontrunners for Beetee and Mags, respectively

It just keeps coming and coming, doesn't it? Variety is reporting that Lionsgate is eyeing Melissa Leo (Welcome to the Rileys--brilliant film, by the way) and Tony Shalhoub (Monk, Wings, Cars, being a genius) as Mags and Beetee, respectively. Both of these characters are known for their zany behavior and unforgettable companionship to Katniss, in Catching Fire, of course, but Beetee goes on to be in Mockingjay.

The article also brings up Sam Claflin, whom we mentioned before as being offered the role of Finnick, allegedly.

So what are your thoughts? So far, except for Hoffman, we think the CF casting is going perfectly, although we still anxiously await confirmations on Jena Malone, Claflin, Leo, and Shalhoub.