There’s something exhilarating about returning to the same piece of media at different stages of your life. The story itself may not change, but you do—and so do the moments, characters, and ideas that stay with you. What resonates at fourteen can feel entirely different at twenty-five, or even thirty, because life reshapes the way you see the world. Your experiences deepen, your values shift, and suddenly the same story begins to reflect a different version of you.

Over the past few days, I’ve found myself rereading a series that meant a lot to me when I was younger: The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. I still remember watching the movie and later starting the series, even though I never got around to finishing it. Back then, I was completely hooked—until life and adulthood quietly pulled my attention elsewhere. Still, no matter how much time has passed, the story has kept its place in my heart.

After I’ve read it again, I’m reminded of what I loved and hated about it.

Loved: The world-building + wit and humor

I admire authors who can create a world of their own and share them to the rest of the world. (Note: I read that the author was accused of plagiarism and the case was settled out of court. When I say I admire authors who can create a world of their own, I mean this in the general sense.)

I have always loved fantasy novels, whether they center on witches, faeries, angels, demons, or entire worlds hidden just beneath our own. That is one of the reasons The Mortal Instruments appealed to me so much: it seemed to have all of those elements woven together in one universe. I was especially drawn to Idris, the Shadowhunter country, which I imagined as a quiet, almost dreamlike place filled with grassy hills, blue skies, and a sense of calm that felt far removed from the chaos of the story. The author compares it to Tuscany, particularly San Gimignano, but when I first read the books, I had never been there, so the reference felt more abstract than real. Rereading the series now, after having visited Florence, Siena, and San Gimignano, changed that completely. Suddenly, Idris felt less like a vague fantasy setting and more like a place I could actually picture.

Aside from the world that the author built, what stood out to me most was how much life the humor brought to the story. Jace, Simon, Magnus, and Isabelle each had lines that made me laugh out loud, not just because they were witty, but because they felt natural to the characters. Their banter gave the heavier moments room to breathe and made the group feel more relatable, like people you could imagine joking around with.

That enjoyment has not faded with age. Whether I was reading it in my early twenties or returning to it now in my thirties, the humor still lands the same way. If anything, I appreciate it more now because it keeps the story from becoming too weighed down by its drama.

And speaking of drama…

Hated: The telenovela-esque plot

As much as I enjoyed the humor and the characters, the plot sometimes felt almost too familiar in a very specific way. As a Filipino, I grew up watching my fair share of Mexican telenovelas and local teleseryes, full of impossible twists, dramatic revelations, prolonged suffering, and emotional conflicts stretched far past their breaking point. That kind of storytelling can be entertaining for some people, but it has never really been my cup of tea, because I don’t enjoy watching innocent people suffer for the sake of keeping the tension alive.

And once I noticed that pattern, I could not unsee it.

Switched at birth? Check. Well, sort of.
Fake siblings? Check.
Postponed wedding? Check.
A character everyone thought had died, only to somehow survive? Check.

I can accept familiar tropes, and I can even appreciate a certain level of angst when it serves the story. But at some point, the emotional stakes stopped feeling intense and started feeling exhausting. There is a difference between angst and torture, and this series kept testing where that line was.

The clearest example is the twist that made the main characters believe they were siblings after already falling in love with each other. That kind of revelation is shocking, yes—but shock alone does not always make a plot stronger. Sometimes it only makes the reader sit back and ask, was this really necessary?

I mean…if the twist was needed to move the story forward, I can understand that. What bothered me was how long it was allowed to linger. Did we really have to reach the end of book three before they discovered they were not, in fact, siblings? And after finally giving them that relief, did the story really need to tear them apart again almost immediately?

When I first read the books, I had no choice but to move forward because I was adamant to see the end of the conflicts. I wanted them to have a happy ending, so I soldiered on and read through every twist and turn. Now that I’m reading them again, I’m just…annoyed.

Gray Area: The (Pseudo?) Incestuous Relationship

This part is more complicated, and I admit I’m still on the fence about it.

Jace and Clary meet, fall in love, and then discover at the end of the first book that they are supposedly siblings. Of course, that revelation turns out to be a lie fabricated by Clary’s father, who is also the villain, but the damage is already done. Even after they believe they are related, their feelings do not simply disappear. Instead, those feelings become another source of pain—almost torture—for both of them, especially Jace. It is easy to understand why he would think something was wrong with him, particularly when that belief is layered on top of the idea that he has demon blood running through his veins.

In that sense, the conflict works because the demon angle gives Jace’s self-loathing a narrative reason. It connects the emotional turmoil to the larger mythology of the series, which makes the twist feel less random than it might have otherwise. Still, even if I can see why the story went there, I keep coming back to the same question: did it really need to last for two whole books?

The Sixth Book: A Prequel?

As of writing, I have not yet finished rereading the fourth book, but I still want to talk about the final installment because I remember my reaction to it so clearly. When it first came out, I was genuinely excited. After following these characters through so many twists, conflicts, and emotional detours, I wanted to see how the author would finally bring their story to a close.

Instead, I remember feeling disappointed. I even told my boyfriend at the time that the last book did not feel like the ending I had been waiting for. To me, it seemed less like a farewell to the characters I had grown attached to and more like a setup for another series in the same universe. What should have been an homage to Clary, Jace, Simon, Alec, Isabelle, and Magnus felt, in some places, like a promotion for new characters and future stories. Rather than giving the original cast the emotional send-off they deserved, the book pushed them into the background, leaving me wanting closure instead of what felt like a prequel disguised as a finale.

Anyway, to wrap it up…

Rereading The Mortal Instruments has been a strange mix of nostalgia, amusement, frustration, and affection. Some parts still remind me why I loved the series in the first place: the hidden world, the humor, the banter, and the characters who once felt so vivid to me. Other parts, especially the drawn-out twists and emotional suffering, are harder for me to overlook now. Maybe that is the point of revisiting stories we loved when we were younger. We do not always return to them as the same readers who first fell in love with them. Sometimes we come back with sharper eyes, lower tolerance for certain tropes, and a better understanding of what kind of storytelling truly satisfies us.

Even so, I do not regret returning to this world. If anything, rereading the series has reminded me that loving something does not mean refusing to criticize it. A story can be flawed and still meaningful. It can annoy you, disappoint you, make you laugh, and still hold a place in your memory. For me, The Mortal Instruments is exactly that: imperfect, dramatic, sometimes exhausting, but still part of the reader I used to be—and, in some ways, the reader I still am.