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Jocelyn's Story

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Though this was originally written as part of City of Glass, it was too long, explained too much, and had to be shortened and altered. While it’s fun to believe that this is how things were for Jocelyn, this excerpt has to be considered non-canon or alternate universe, so don’t be surprised if things in future Shadowhunters books contradict this version of events, or if it contradicts things in City of Glass.

35 pages, ebook

First published August 31, 2011

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About the author

Cassandra Clare

196 books273k followers
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Tehran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old.

Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on a Jane Austen short story of the same name (and which later inspired her current pen name).

After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina’s world travels and Britney Spears’ wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favourite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.
Cassie’s first professional writing sale was a short story called “The Girl’s Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord” in a Baen anthology of humor fantasy. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted by reality TV shows and the antics of her cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friends, who see that she sticks to her deadlines.

City of Bones was her first novel. Sword Catcher is her most recent novel.

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5 stars
916 (37%)
4 stars
660 (27%)
3 stars
623 (25%)
2 stars
161 (6%)
1 star
52 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 168 reviews
Profile Image for Shawna Finnigan.
619 reviews353 followers
October 20, 2021
TW//

This was a short story originally posted on Cassandra Clare’s website. Unfortunately you can no longer access it on her website and it’s not for sale anywhere that I can see. I settled on reading it on the Shadowhunters Wiki because I was interested in reading it on a site that wasn't an illegal pirating site, BUT if you know of the proper legal place to buy or read this short story, please let me know because I’d like to support the author if I can.

I just finished City of Heavenly Fire last night and was really disappointed by it, so I was expecting to not like this one, but I was surprisingly blown away. It had that magical feel that made me fall in love with the Shadowhunters universe. Jocelyn’s Story is simply Jocelyn telling her and Valentine's story to Clary. It was too long to include in the series, so it was cut down for City of Ashes. I’d actually really like a prequel novel that covered this whole story. This short story gave so much more complexity to Jocelyn, Luke, and Valentine. My thoughts on Jocelyn were even drastically changed after reading this. I can now understand why she did what she did and I can see how Valentine manipulated her into being part of the Circle.

This story is considered non-canon, but it still really entertained me. If you hate Jocelyn with a burning passion, then maybe skip this one, but I didn’t mind Jocelyn in the original series so I was able to really enjoy this short story.
Profile Image for Luciana Gomez Mauro.
224 reviews110 followers
October 7, 2019
Siempre quise conocer competa la historia de Jocelyn, creo que este libro es como un extra de Ciudad de Cristal, por qué el relato de Jocelyn es realmente largo y está narrado por ella contándole todo a Clary.
Aún sigo sin poder entender que le vio a Valentine, pero fue interesante ver todo lo del levantamiento, lo que pasó con Jonathan y como ella pudo irse.
Para mí no estuvo bien eso que hizo de ocultarle la verdad a Clary, entendí su dolor y las ganas de vivir una vida normal y olvidarse de los Nephilim, pero cuando Valentine la secuestro, si no hubiese Sido por Jace, Alec y Isabel, Clary hubiese muerto, ya que su madre nunca le enseño a defenderse.
Tiene mucha suerte de tener a Luke, Lucian un personaje que tiene todo mi cariño.

Me quedo una duda con la muerte de Celine, ¿Murió por qué se cortó las venas o por qué tomo el veneno?, Por qué en mi versión del libro nombran la muerte de esas dos maneras, y quedé con la duda.
En fin, no es necesario leer este libro ya que no aporta nada fundamental a la historia, solo te cuenta lo que pasó durante la época del levantamiento y de Valentine.
Sin embargo, me gustó.

Orden de lectura:
-Ciudad de hueso (Instrumentos Mortales) (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
-Ciudad de ceniza (Instrumentos Mortales)(⭐⭐⭐⭐)
-Ciudad de Cristal (Instrumentos Mortales) (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐).
-La historia de Jocelyn (Instrumentos Mortales) (⭐⭐⭐)
-Ángel Mecánico (Los Orígenes)
-Ciudad de los Ángeles Caídos (Instrumentos Mortales)
-Príncipe Mecánico (Los Orígenes)
-Ciudad de las Almas Perdidas (Instrumentos Mortales)
-Princesa Mecánica (Los Orígenes)
-Ciudad del Fuego Celestial (Instrumentos Mortales)
-Despues del puente (Instrumentos Mortales)
-Las Crónicas de Magnus Bane (Instrumentos Mortales)
Profile Image for Lara (Bookish_turtle).
318 reviews223 followers
October 23, 2017
I only just found out that this existed, but I'm very glad that I did. It was a very interesting read which offered a lot of insight into the characters from before the start of the series.

I often found Jocelyn's character and motives confusing when reading The Mortal Instruments, and being able to read her backstory and perspective offered a lot of new insight. I also loved learning more about Luke. He is one of my favourite adult characters from the series, and it was interesting to learn a little bit more about him. I do prefer the original story and I am glad that this is non-canon, but I am glad I had the opportunity to read it nonetheless.

It was quite intriguing and I'm really glad that I read it. However, it's more about the characters than the plot, so I would definitely recommend for fans of The Mortal Instruments who want a bit more insight into some of the other characters.
Profile Image for Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile.
2,246 reviews878 followers
March 12, 2023
A good behind-the-scenes story from Jocelyn's mouth of her life with Valentine. Most of it was information we already got from City of Glass, but it was still a quick, interesting read.
Profile Image for Veronica Alvarez.
337 reviews20 followers
March 2, 2021
2.75
What can I say? Jocelyn's been always my least favorite character haha I really hate her so you can imagine how excited I was to read this
Yeah, it's a good story it gives really good information and all that but my main issue is Jocelyn, now I don't hate her as much as I did I just don't like her but she's still my least favorite
The question that it won't let me sleep is:
IF SHE KNEW EVERYTHING OF VALENTINE AND WHAT HE HAD DONE TO HER SON, WHY DID SHE HAVE SEX WITH VALENTINE? AGAIN! JUST A FEW DAYS AFTER GIVING BIRTH TO JONATHAN? WHAT??
Profile Image for Emi.acg.
583 reviews212 followers
February 6, 2022
Más que nada lo leí porque lo tenía, ya que no es canon. Y literalmente, porque se contradice en muchas cosas con el capítulo que le dedicaban en ciudad de cristal a la historia de Jocelyn.
De todas formas igual hubo dos o tres cosas extras que igual calzarian bien en la historia normal. Como por ejemplo
Profile Image for Vanessa.
34 reviews
September 29, 2013
This story allows us to see what happened to Jocelyn. It was very intriguing and sad. It also tells the story of her and Valentine. It is very interesting to anyone invested in the Mortal Instruments series.
Profile Image for Mariah.
1,285 reviews490 followers
August 27, 2019
"Perhaps it was the demon in them both."



I think calling this 'Jocelyn's Story' is a bit of a stretch, it's more like 'Jocelyn's Draft'. This isn't canon so I can't nitpick that much because it was eventually changed but there's a lot here that isn't cohesive in itself: the spelling of "Brocelind" changes not once, not twice but three times, Céline's death flip flopped and other details were changed in the progress which doesn't a self-contained story make.

As a draft however, this is quite interesting. This one offers a different beginning for Jace, and even though I much prefer the canon gen story, I still got chills on that last line.

He called him Jace...
Profile Image for Sophia.
2,273 reviews349 followers
Read
March 9, 2021
Definitely read this....although, I don't remember how much I liked it...
It's Cassandra Clare so I'm sure it was awesome 😆
Profile Image for Silvia.
225 reviews100 followers
October 28, 2017
«What mother, on learning of the death of her child, cannot help a feeling of — relief?»
Profile Image for Resh.
370 reviews1 follower
December 29, 2023
hm. reshmita the caterpillar bc im too lazy to write a review rn.
Profile Image for Munaya Al salhee.
444 reviews15 followers
December 26, 2016
I really liked reading it!!!!

I mean you get to know Jocelyn's thoughts and emotions regarding her son and her husband and to know what she has been through. To see how she handeld the birth of her son and what did he turn out to be and later on to see that her Husband isn't what she thought or assumed he would behaive when she first fell in love with him.

You have to see that Jocelyn had an impessive will power and personality to come up with the ideas that she later had to run away and to help Luke with.

Once again I really like this story!!
Profile Image for yashfa.
144 reviews32 followers
September 22, 2017
all this does is remind how screwed up valentine was man... i have some major tmi feels rn.
Profile Image for Gwen.
94 reviews172 followers
March 22, 2016
Loved this! I really enjoyed City of Glass and this was an important part for us to understand everything. It's great to read those details that were omitted in the book.
354 reviews9 followers
Want to read
September 22, 2017
Omg how did I only just find out that this was a thing? And can I say that I really hate the cover like I think it's really ugly I'm sorry omg
Profile Image for Elisabethclaire.
388 reviews19 followers
January 26, 2019
This story gives us nice character examination about both Valentine & Sebastian/Johnathan I think I can see some Morgenstern family traits that can be allied to Ash too...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for pao_books.
259 reviews29 followers
September 9, 2020
Es la historia de Jocelyn cuando estaba en el círculo,tiene un montón de fallos porque contradice a cosas que se dicen en Ciudad de Ceniza y Ghosts of the shadow market, Cassandra ya dijo que no es Canon pero la historia es rápida de leer y ayuda a comprender las decisiones de Jocelyn respecto a sus hijos
Profile Image for Leilaniiii.
325 reviews189 followers
Want to read
June 24, 2022
I’ve just found out this existed and I DONT particularly like Jocelyn but eh I wanna know
Profile Image for Jennifer.
570 reviews30 followers
April 7, 2020
I can see that a few things had changed by the time City of Glass was published but I loved this insight into Jocelyn's life with Valentine and the Circle.
Profile Image for r.
200 reviews75 followers
April 20, 2021
this is just 35 pages but it felt like it was 100... i had to skim through some parts
July 14, 2013
Es considerado como “Jocelyn's Story ( The Mortal Instruments, #3.5)” porque tiene parte en Ciudad de Cristal, en la escena donde Clary está afuera del Salón de los Acuerdos, esperando que le den una respuesta a su idea, entonces llega Jocelyn y le habla de su pasado. Es exactamente lo mismo que pasa en el libro, pero más ampliado, contiene datos que fueron suprimidos en el libro y así.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 168 reviews

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