Book Rants: Girls Who Hate Girls (The Mortal Instruments 1-3 spoilers)

Today's second book-related rant has to do with the all-too-common trend of fictional girls who hate all the other fictional girls around them. To be honest, I haven't actually seen this frequently enough in books to warrant all the times I've read about this trend, but I'm just taking that as a sign where I'm reading the right books. I have seen it in a few books, though, and I'd like to talk about why I don't like this trend, and how City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass are the only books which have made this work.

There is a big difference between a female protagonist fighting with another girl, and a protagonist merely disliking another girl. Contrary to popular belief, I have a problem with the second case. When two characters are fighting, it is usually relevant to the plot. The protagonist needs at least one antagonist to provide opposition to drive the story. When a female protagonist puts down the girls she considers her friends and/or allies, that's just annoying, useless girl-hating. The protagonist may be trying to tell me that so-and-so is a useless flirt because she wears too much makeup, but what I've actually learned is that the protagonist is insecure about herself and bolsters her shaky confidence by judging other women. Unfortunately, most of the cases I've seen use girl-hate don't even bother addressing this problem with the protagonist's outlook, which normalizes the damaging behavior. 

Which brings me to The Mortal Instruments series. 

If you have read the first three Mortal Instruments books (City of Bones, City of Ashes, and City of Glass), click for spoiler-filled discussion below. If you have not, let me just say that while the book series may at first appear to fall into this girl-hating trap, it actually addresses that issue beautifully.

I finally finished City of Glass recently, and it is definitely my favorite of the the first three books in the series. Based on several BookTubers' review, City of Bones is the least favorite of the series for the common first-book-in-a-series reasons (info dumps, slow pace, long breaks between action), but my main problem with City of Bones, the reason that I almost didn't read the rest of the series, was Clary's completely unjustified dislike of Isabelle. 

Throughout City of Bones, Clary is constantly comparing her body to Isabelle's, and often reduces Isabelle to her only her physical appearance. Clary also notes Isabelle's flirtation with Simon and reacts in a way that could almost be mistaken for jealousy, if it weren't so obvious that Clary has no romantic feelings for Simon. Even though Clary is not attracted to Simon, she still sees him as her aromantic* boyfriend (before heading out to Magnus's party, she literally describes him as the sort of boy you'd date, before immediately comparing him to the guy she is attracted to). By perceiving Isabelle to be more attractive than herself, Clary sees Isabelle as a threat to getting the attention of both Jace, the guy she wants, and Simon, the guy she already has. Eventually Clary realizes that Isabelle and Jace are platonic, and Simon is actually in love with her and not Isabelle, and it is only then that she makes her peace with Isabelle's existence. 

But it isn't until City of Ashes, when we meet Maia, the werewolf girl whom Clary dislikes almost immediately, that the series grabbed my attention. Clary is in the middle of making some unfair judgement on Maia when she suddenly realizes her criticism of Maia is born of her own jealousy of Maia's good looks, and admits to herself that she often reacts this way when meeting a girl she finds more attractive than herself. Most importantly, though, is Clary's resolve to actively stop thinking this way. And the really brilliant thing is, she does. Throughout the rest of City of Ashes and City of Glass, Clary considers both Isabelle and Maia her allies, and she encourages Simon to move on from her with one of them. I really look forward to seeing how this new and improved Clary turns out in the later books of the series.

*EDIT: While I'm sure Simon has a lovely aroma, I meant to say he was aromantic, not aromatic.