Customer Reviews

Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, Book 1)

5 star:		(214)
4 star:		(95)
3 star:		(35)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

When Tessa Gray arrives in London on a ship from New York, she's eager to see her brother, Nate. But before she can find him, she's intercepted by two women, known as the Dark Sisters, who kidnap her and force her to learn how to use the strange magical powers she never knew she had, all the while promising her that she is lucky, and she will soon meet the sinister Magister. Terrified and confused, Tessa is rescued by two young Shadowhunters, Will and Jem, and is taken to the London Institute, where she learns that her powers are just the beginning of a strange, magical world she never knew existed, full of wonder, but also full of hate, prejudice, and danger...and Tessa is in the center of it.

Clockwork Angel, the first in Cassandra Clare's new Infernal Devices trilogy, is a descriptive and elaborate book and a strong start to what is sure to be another knock-out trilogy. It takes about thirty pages or so before the book, which is set in the Victorian era, to reach familiar ground readers might be looking for, but once it does, the book unfolds quickly and smoothly. The times dictate that the mannerisms are a bit more refined in the characters, but Clare manages to sneak in plenty of humor and fun alongside the darker and riskier action scenes. There are a plethora of excellent new characters readers are introduced to, and each one is very realistic, and many have their secrets and mysteries--for Tessa, it is her heritage, and Will and Jem both have hazy backgrounds that are bound to become bigger issues later on.

One conflict that Clare portrays quite well was the struggle for the women Shadowhunters to be proper young ladies and women that society demands while balancing the Shadowhunters' need for strong fighters. Two characters, Jessamine and Charlotte, while on opposite ends of the controversy, both have to deal with it in their own way, and it's an issue that sets Clockwork Angel apart from Clare's previous work while at the same time making the setting more believable.

The idea of a clockwork army is brilliant, and the forethought and plotting that went into the book is impressive. There are plenty of intriguing mysteries and labyrinthine twists toward the end that will leave the reader far from where they were at the beginning of the book. Clare's talent for writing well-developed and entertaining characters and her fearlessness when it comes to creating dramatic, complicated conclusions to her books will garner Clockwork Angel plenty of attention and will leave readers impatient for the sequel.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare is an really good read.I stayed up until 2 am on the day I bought it because I was totally sucked in. The setting of Victorian London is really atmospheric and well written, for anyone who loved the mortal instruments but doesnt read books set in this era, dont worry. It's really great.

In regards to the characters in this book, I was both dissappointed and relieved. They are all VERY similar to those in the mortal instruments trilogy. Will is Jace with brown hair, Jem is kind of a straight Alec and Jessamine is isabel, and then there is Nate who is basically sebastian but without demon blood. I actally liked Tessa more than I did Clary, she was really likeable and felt more real to me. I am glad in some ways that the author stuck to a formula of characters that definately worked for her with mortal instruments, but also I just felt a little cheated. I loved the mortal insturments characters so much I dont have much love left over for characters that are so damn similar.

The clockwork monsters we're really quite scary, certainly far more frightening than their creator and master who I was really disappointed in. Magnus Bane is as always totally fabulous and I really love the witty banter between the two main characters. Tessa's humour is dry and clever, very funny. There is a joke in there about a seven fingered dwarf named Nigel that cracked me up like there is no tomorrow.

All in all I would absolutely, one-hundred-percent recommend this book to people who enjoyed the mortal instruments trilogy or the fantasy YA genre, for me it just wasnt as good as the earlier books, though to be fair, that is an exceedingly tall order.

This was a light fantasy, not a heavy read at all. Characters were were well rounded and the story fairly well written. An unusual take on an alternate victoriana London. Not high literature, but if you are looking for an easy read to enjoy a bit of fantasty this will do it. I'll probably look for the next in the series.

I am a hard reader to please.. this book was somewhat of a relief when I walked into the bookstore... no mention of vampires.. can it really be???
Well... there were a few vampires.. who played rather important roles, but they were just simply "villains".
The main character (Tessa) was very likable, but I feel like more could have been done to develop her character. I really love the historical/paranormal combo and the strong component of machines,and machine people makes this seem very steampunk. The plot... was OK. The beginning of the book was good and it seems like the writer spaced out the action enough to hold my attention, BUT the end.. is left unresolved so that the series can carry on.
*sigh*
I really liked the premise for this story it seemed much more original than average, but as I read on I found it more difficult to suspend belief, and it felt more and more like historicallyness (yes. it's a word.. maybe) was being lost :(.
Twas a good read, perhaps I shall read the next one..?

The following review has some spoilers. Also my spelling of the author's last name is intentional.

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray moves to London after the death of her Aunt so that she may live with her brother, Nathaniel. Problem is, when she gets to London she isn't greeted by Nathaniel but is instead picked up by two women who call themselves the Dark Sisters. They force her to uncover her shape-shifting power, but soon after she is rescued by William Herondale, a Shadowhunter. She then learns of the world of the Nephilim and of Downworlders and her new place in it. This is all somehow tied to the disappearance of her brother, whom Tessa is now determined to rescue from whatever danger he may have been thrown in to.

First, and foremost, it must be said that Tessa and Will are basically Clary and Jace with different names and different clothes. Tessa is just as boring and obnoxious as Clary is and Will is just as much of an irritating jerk as Jace is in all the same ways that Jace is- actually, scratch that, he's much worse than Jace is. There is nothing, nothing whatsoever that makes me feel like there's any difference between Jace and Will specifically. You could take lines from one, give it to the other, and I would not be able to tell you that those lines did not belong to that character. *They are exactly the same.* You know what particularly sucks about that? I hated Jace in City of Bones, so naturally I've hated Will the entire time that I read Clockwork Angel. If I was at least re-reading a good and entertaining character, I may have been able to forgive Cassandra Claire, but alas, I cannot.

Secondly, yet again, Claire has managed to write pages and pages of filler nonsense that made this book way bigger than it needed to be in order to tell the full story. There were several instances in which I wondered why I should care that Charlotte had a hard time getting two carriages instead of just one from the Institute. What use is this kind of information in forwarding the plot? Why is almost half a page dedicated to this nonsense? Why do several pages of this book have this very same problem? If I had a red pen, I could've crossed out paragraphs of information and none of the story would have been lost.

I have to go back to the issue of Claire's characters though. While I will not say that Jessamine is an exact copy of Isabel, I will say that she's the same formula for a character. Jessamine has issues with being a Shadowhunter, while Isabel is comfortable with her life as one, but aside from this they serve the same purpose: they're hot chicks with superficial personalities that exist to show you that even though Tessa (Clary) isn't a drop-dead gorgeous babe, she is still way better than Jessamine and thus more desirable for male leads such as Will. She had interesting moments here and there, but in the end, she turned out to be pretty disappointing. I don't enjoy books where the other girls that are around the same age as the protagonist are written off as bitches, I prefer it when the protagonist makes genuine relationships with other girls, because that's something I can relate to, and even if I couldn't, that's still something I would *want* to relate to.

Speaking of relationships, you know what really annoys me? I'm supposed to have this understanding throughout the book that Will and Tessa are falling for each other, yet there's nothing in the books that makes me feel like there should be a reason for their feelings. Why does Tessa feel anything for a guy that flips moods with her from one day to another, or a guy that has a sarcastic reply to anything and everything, or a guy that is outright snobbish and rude no matter who he's talking to or what he's talking about?

"Will cared for her, she was sure of it. Yes, he had been rude to her almost since he had met her, but then, that happened in novels all the time." (p. 454)

I agree, Tessa, and I am deeply sick of it. The above quote is followed by a comparison to Darcy and Elizabeth's relationship, and how he had been rude to her before he proposed. The difference here is that Darcy doesn't try to be an ass on purpose, and once he realizes he's been an ass, he tries to change his asshaterriness. Will is an ass entirely on purpose. The entire time, to everyone, and although part of the ending shows us he's got this sweet, chocolate center to him, he *still* likes to put on the image of being a complete ass afterwards. It is not romantic, it is not sweet, it isn't heartbreaking to think that he's got ~deep secrets~ and an oh-so haunting past. I don't care what his excuse for his behavior turns out to be (because it's obvious Claire is setting us up for a moment of "Oh so that explains why he was always so mean! Well I can totally forgive him now!") the stuff he says and does is just too much. The description of this book says, "Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm's length... everyone, that is, but Tessa." Um.. Last I checked, he kept her away as well, except that she wouldn't stop badgering him with inappropriately personal questions because she found him so damn physically attractive and alluring. They share nothing throughout the book, not even their enjoyment of literature, because you can't really enjoy literature with someone if they spend half their time trying not to show you how much they enjoy literature. They're rude to each other, and Will especially said some horrible things throughout this book. If anything, they should be enemies by now. I just don't understand why YA has developed this trend in which the male leads are complete jerks and the girls just *can't* stay away from them. Give me Harry Potters, Ron Weasleys, Peeta Mellarks, Seths (from Wicked Lovely) but please, for the love of God, don't give me any more William Herondales. Guys like him suck.

Moving on.

Name-dropping classic book titles does not warm me up to your characters. No matter how many times you do it. It does not give them personalities to have them quote A Tale of Two Cities, so stop it. Please find better ways of developing personalities.

The dialogue. Oh God the dialogue! In this book and in her first book all of her dialogue was awkward and contrived. You could start a new scene, and it would be as though nothing happened while you, the reader, were gone because the dialogue would soon give you an unnatural summary of recent events. Nothing felt natural, no one said things that I felt someone in real life would naturally say. People still kept setting each other up for one-liners. Awkward statements were made with no indication that the author had made it awkward on purpose. Everyone always feels the need to stop in the middle of an action scene, or a suspenseful scene, and say something witty. Example:

"She's dead," said Jem.
"Are you certain?" Will could not take his eyes off the woman's face. She was pale, but
not with a corpse's pallor, and her hands lay folded in her lap, the fingers softly curved,
not stiff with the rigor of death. He moved closer to her and placed a hand on her arm. It
was rigid and cold beneath his fingers. "Well, she's not responding to my advances," he
observed more brightly than he felt, "so she must be dead."
"Or she's a woman of good taste and sense." (p. 130)

Yeah, so you find what you think to be a dead body, so what's the natural reaction to that? Why, talking about women's tastes in relation to your good looks, of course! What other reaction *could* there be to a dead body?

People also often tell me that they enjoy Claire's world-building, but I have to disagree, because her dialogue is another reason why I can't feel like she builds her world well at all. Prepare for a bit of more nitpicking. Example:

Will leaned back against the wall. "Did that order of misericord blades come in,
Thomas? I've been running into a certain amount of Shax demons lately, and I need
something narrow that can pierce armored carapaces."

Will is asking Thomas, a man who presumably has trained and lived with them for a long time, about misericord as though Thomas would not naturally understand why he would need them. Normal dialogue between people doesn't require explanations like this. If he were explaining to a curious Tessa, then that might work, but that wasn`t what he was doing. If he said, "Did that order of misericord come in Thomas?" and Thomas said, "No, it did not- why did you order those anyway?" then Will could say, "I've been running into a certain amount of Shax demons lately." Thomas should, having lived in their world for a while now, understand what a Shax demon is and therefore require no further explanation about armored carapaces. A chef would not say to another chef, "Did the order of large kitchen knives come in yet? I've had large pieces of meat to work with lately and I need something that can cut through all that thick meat and bone." It is unnecessary because people who know each other and live in the same environment don't need to go through these extra explanations, unless someone asks. There should be a mutual understanding as there would be in real life. This is why I can't be like, "Oh this is great world-building!" because at the time I'm thinking, "People don't talk like that!" And perhaps if this had only been one instance of awkward dialogue I might've been able to forgive Claire, but it isn't. I'm not, however, going to bore you by bringing up examples of all the other instances in which dialogue is just wrong, because that would take forever and probably wouldn't be much fun for me.

Then there's the issue of Shadowhunters and the villains. The Shadowhunters, as usual, have too many runes that easily allow them to deal with problems throughout their missions. Example:

They seemed to thread with the pattern of his veins, as if his blood ran through the Marks, too. "For swiftness, night vision, angelic power, to heal quickly," he read out loud. (p. 105)

Newsflash, Claire, if your heroes have an unnecessary amount of helpful tools on their side, then it makes it very hard for me to believe that they're ever really in danger. Also, it's hard to believe that old, "powerful" vampires like de Quincey are much of a threat if a seventeen year-old Shadowhunter can put up a decent fight. As for your other villain, why is it that I so easily guessed he was going to disappear at the last minute? How did I know he was going to make an easy escape? Was it because you did just about the exact same thing in City of Bones?

Finally, I dislike books that are so very obviously trying to set up a sequel. It's bad enough that I think this novel was filled with paragraphs and paragraphs of pointless information, it only makes it worse to leave so many questions unanswered. Not that I'm dying to know the answers now, I just think it's bad form. If she had let this book stand on its own, maybe, just *maybe* I would have liked it a bit more, but unfortunately, that's not what happened.

I liked this author's previous books. She did take some risks with her story line but overall Mortal Instruments were quite creative and interesting to read. I was looking forward to this book since I was under the impression that there will be no more Mortal Instrument follow-up focusing on the original characters. Apparently that decision is changed and she will continue with two more books. In general if the author was not planning to write more books in a series and changes his/her mind after, those books do not turn out very well organized but we shall see what happens. When it comes to this book: the good side is, it is well written and again interesting to read. But at the end, it was Clary and Jace`s story taking place at a different time/location with different names. Their personalities are the same, their conversations are the same... I am disappointed because of the lack of character creativity but the story was interesting. That's why I am giving this book 2 stars... Wait for the paperback and don't waste your money. If you get too desperate, open one of the previous books and read any chapter and imagine it takes place in old London...

It almost feels as though Cassandra Clare re-wrote her first book and sold it to us as a brand new story. The characters, William and Tessa especially, resemble characters from City of Bones too closely to be able to really tell them apart. These characters aren't even good characters to begin with. Tessa is boring, and Will- well, Will makes it really difficult to enjoy the book at all. He's mean beyond mean, and I know Clare wants us to think he's doing it all for a good reason, but I'm just not buying it.

Clare's writing also hasn't managed to improve at all since her first book. Actually, she has less similes, but that doesn't make it all that much better. She needs to go back and edit a lot of unnecessary information out and fix sentences that are too awkwardly worded.

After trudging through nearly 500 pages of this novel, I am left neither curious nor satisfied, just simply tired. I would not recommend this book to anyone, it just isn't worth the time spent on it.

REASON FOR READING THIS BOOK:
Recommend to me by friends on GoodReads.


SUMMARY:
When her brother sends an invitation to come to London, sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray travels from the US to meet him. Before she has a chance, she's kidnapped by two ladies dubbed the Dark Sisters. A dark world of vampires, warlocks and other supernaturals are waiting. Before they have a chance to carry out their plans, Tessa is rescued by a Shadowhunter. They promised to help her find her brother, but this will come at a price and that is if they survive in a dangerous plot to destroy the Shadowhunters.


MY THOUGHTS:
Let me say this upfront. I tried to read book one of the Mortal Instruments by the same author and couldn't get into her writing style. It did take about fifty (ish) pages to become emotionally invested. Now that I have, I want to not only continue with this series, but go back and try to read the Mortal Instruments series again.


BOTTOM LINE:
Once the story sunk it's claws in me, I had a hard time putting the book down.

Out of all the books I've reviewed so far for my blog, this one has been the most difficult for me...and I'm not even certain why. The book was -not- bad. The plot seemed engaging enough, the characters were formed well enough to be either likable or detestable. The writing and editing was sufficient. The story itself, though...I felt it was a little "been there, done that". Unfortunately, from the very beginning of the book, I was bored. I managed to read four other novels during the time it took me to finish this one, and in the end I had to simply force myself to ignore all other books and -finish- Clockwork Angel. I want to reiterate, though, that this novel was NOT a bad book. I think, honestly, that it just wasn't my cup of tea.

That said, though...a lot of bloggers whose opinions I respect and who read a lot of the same things I do, and who like the same things I do - well, they've loved this book. I just -didn't-. It felt very Harry Potter-ish, except not quite as lovely as Harry Potter. Tessa has about as much personality as Bella from Twilight at the beginning of the book, though she does actually gain some by the end of the book.

What I did like: the clockwork gadgets. I loved the idea of the automatons, and the little pendant that Tessa wears is SO NEAT. But...what, really, does the pendant have to do with the story? It plays a part on one page out of several hundred. I'm assuming more will be revealed about it in the next book in the series, but...I won't be reading it to find out. Too little, too late, I think.

A Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare is riddled with mysteries, misconceptions and characters with witty repartee. The book was slow to start and there were sections in the middle where the plot drug along significantly. The ending and mysterious nature of the characters is what kept me flipping the pages. I wanted to know more about Will and Jem and the rest of the orphans at the Institute.

I had an incredibly difficult time buying the love story between Tessa and Will. I felt that there was more of a connection between Jem and Tessa. Now, I don't particularly find this a huge flaw or anything - I still love Will. I want to know more about him. He is handsome and intriguing and I need to know all the secrets of his past. He isn't the only character I found endearing through his faults- Henry, a Shadowhunter Inventor... None of his inventions work much. It is cute.

The plot was enjoyable, as were the diverse characters. I had fun with them, was just hoping for a little less description and a little more action. (But I'm an action junkie!) This book should be read by those that love Steampunk, Young Adult and Cassandra's other work. I'll be sticking around to read the next installment- can't wait to see the tension rise between Tessa and Will. :)