Clockwork Angel

Can I just say, this is one of the most gorgeous book covers I've seen in my entire life!

Title: Clockwork Angel

Author: Cassandra Clare

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Margaret K. McElderry

Publication Date: August 31^st, 2010

Length: 479 pages

Genre: YA Fantasy/Steampunk

Format and Source: Hardback, ordered from Amazon

Summary from Goodreads: [This will be spoiler free, but the actual review below will not]. In a time when Shadowhunters are barely winning the fight against the forces of darkness, one battle will change the course of history forever. Welcome to the Infernal Devices trilogy, a stunning and dangerous prequel to the New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series.
The year is 1878. Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to. Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them...

Review: [Reminder: Spoilers]. Let’s talk about regrets, shall we? Here’s a little fun fact: one of my biggest regrets in life was buying both the TMI and TID series last year for my birthday without a second guess. I had figured that since anyone who was anyone in the bookosphere had read and raved about this series. I read the first two books of TMI and honestly felt so isolated because I looked like the only person alive who didn’t like them. Here follows more regret: I actually pretended to like the series. I pretended to be a fan so I could talk to the big accounts. Yeah, I know, I was a little dick. But anyway, that was a year ago and I haven’t touched any of the books since.

After a lot of convincing from many people, I decided to start with the first book in TID, Clockwork Angel, which brings us to the review. I really don’t know how I want to rate this book. On one hand it was actually so good compared to TMI I want to give it an A+, but then compared to other books I’ve read this year it’s only really good, not great. I’ll go over what I liked about it before I start listing all the reasons that’ll make everyone on the internet want to kill me, so here we go.

The biggest win point for me was the characters. Although they were obvious parallels (more on this later), I actually liked Tessa, Will and Jem way more than I liked Clary and co. I think this was mainly because I’m into steampunk and these characters were from that era so they were instantly more likable for me. That’s not to say they didn’t have their flaws; there were so many moments I just wanted to punch Tessa or Will, it was only really Jem who managed to dodge my violent emotions. Basically, I thought Will and Tessa, even though they were just as stupid as Clary and Jace, had so much more chemistry and I actually enjoyed reading about their interactions. Most secondary characters were also much more interesting than those in TMI which was also a plus.

Another positive for me was the villains. I was so tempted to say the plotline but it was so cliché and overused in Cassie’s work I don’t think I would write it down as a positive. I liked the automatons and how they were born of neither Heaven nor Hell. I thought it was a very interesting way to present the villain’s army, and I definitely wanted to see more of them in the first book. I’m really hoping that the next two books show the demons bound to the automatons, if taken in the right direction it could probably make this series memorable for me.

I think the final and most important point to make here is that the book induced emotions in me. Unlike in TMI, when Nate betrayed Tessa, I actually felt anger. When Will kept pushing Tessa away, I wanted to slap him (but I’m hoping he has his legitimate reasons for doing so). The fact that this book actually made me feel engaged was amazing; I think despite the issues I’ve had with Cassandra and her writing in the past, she definitely managed to work her skill to her advantage, and I’m sure that this series will be one I will reread soon, if the rest has the aforementioned positives and less negatives.

Now we move onto the depressing part of the review where I talk about the stuff I didn’t like. Let’s talk about all the parallels first. We’ve got the stubborn female character who has no idea what Shadowhunters are but has a power no one else does and is instrumental in their successes. As well as the Tessa/Clary character, we have the Will/Jace. This is a character who is insanely attractive and knows it (although I hated Jace as much as I loved Will, which is a lot). He has a twisted sense of humour and constantly insults people, and of course he has a dark mysterious secret that we have to read three books to find out about. Jem and Simon weren’t too similar but you know what I mean.

The pace was very varying in this book. At times I was flipping through pages excitedly because oh my gosh something interesting is happening I need to know what happens next but at other times I had to tell myself to continue reading the book so I could finish it. It definitely affected how quickly I read the book because for me to get in a solid hour or two of reading on a school night there needs to be substance in what I’m reading.

Reading over what I said in this review, I’m sure many of you will probably think I hated Clockwork Angel but that isn’t the case. I was pleasantly surprised to find I liked this book a lot, and I managed to whiz through the second half in a day. I’m grateful that I was convinced to read this book – while it may not be stellar literary art, that isn’t all you need to enjoy a book. I thought the characters were likable on the whole, and the premise was amazing.

Final Rating: B. This book was really good and I definitely enjoyed it. On its own it didn’t really impact me, but from what my friend has told me, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess are much more emotional so hopefully those will have much higher ratings! If you are into the fantasy or steampunk genre I would definitely recommend this book, but at this stage I don’t think any romance fans will find much in this book.

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