Cassandra Clare
502 pg., U.S. hardcover
Simon & Schuster
Four stars | B+
From Goodreads:
With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move and that one of their own has betrayed them.
Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will; the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?
As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.
This review will be spoiler-free, and you won't really have to have read Clockwork Angel to get this review. There may be bits of spoilers, but I will drop warnings along the way.
I'll dive right in with Cassandra Clare's writing, which I wasn't that big of a fan of in this book. I feel like she took way too much time to pull apart such trivial events and describe them in depth, which wasn't really needed. I feel like certain vital scenes rushed by my eyes, and I had to go back and re-read those specific aspects, and I also feel like Cassandra Clare could have--should have--cut them down if she intended for emphasis to be drawn to these scenes. For these reasons, the pacing of the book was really slow, and I was tempted to begin skipping over certain parts of the book, but I know that would have been detrimental on my part.
The story line in this book doesn't coincide with the title as much as its predecessor did. I feel like it revolved a lot around the aspects of Mortmain and his existence and what he was up to rather than building the tensions between Tessa and Jem, and Tessa and Will, which obviously were supposed to have this big pay-off in the end. I also thought the plot was kind of all over the place, in the sense that at some parts, it was calm and they were training, and at some parts there were scenes discussing certain people's betrayals. I did like, however, how a lot of things were foreshadowed, and how a lot of new plot points were introduced in order to factor into later plot points, and also to bridge to the next book. I feel like this book was one big segue into Clockwork Princess.
The characterization in this review wasn't all that appealing to me; I felt like Will and Jem were both equally annoying, and that they didn't grow or change from the characters they were in Clockwork Angel. I thought that, since we get this huge bombshell on Will, he would be more likable and that his motives would be merited for, but I still was irked by him. As far as characters that I like go, I still love Magnus Bane, and I liked Camille's return. I also liked the leader of the werewolf back, Woolsey Scott, and I thought he lightened things up a bit, which I appreciated. I'm glad that Clare added a lot of variety and flavor to this dark book.
I think the only reason I'm really rewarding this book four stars out of five is because I think it was a pleasing sequel to an otherwise amazing first book, so I was pretty satisfied overall.
The sequel, Clockwork Princess is due out March 2013.
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