review: clockwork angel by cassandra clare

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So far, every bit as beautiful and absorbing as her other books! I just wish I had the time to sink right in and not come up until it's done!




12-22-10:


SPOILER WARNING!


In the end, it was very much a first novel (in a series if not her's), and there was a sense that Cassie was trying to find her voice in a Voctorian world, which led to making parts of the book sort of stilted and strange. I think the love story suffered a little from not getting inside Wil's head nearly enough (it was much more organic with Jem). The plot couldn't quite decide if it was about Tessa's brother or about Mortmain, and how they fit together. Sometimes it seems like the story wants to go somewhere that the established history can't manage to allow, and has to be forced back-- and that always leads to awkwardness.




But you know what? For all that, I loved it. As soon as I had time, I devoured it, and it made me want to live in the ugly, deadly, dirty London of Victorian times, made me froth at the mouth a little bit at the thought of having to wait for the next one.




I expected it to be a little tighter because the Mortal Instruments series was so fantastic right off the bat, but there is nothing here that can't be explained away. The next book will likely be stronger for all the problems in this one being worked through, and now that the world is established, it's ready to go-- hopefully completely off the rails. And I love the idea that Valentine isn't the first one to start manipulating things he shouldn't have had control over. Maybe there were more before him, too, a whole line of wack-jobs he could draw on for his own purposes, and maybe all of them have stories like this to be told.




The book is beautiful, often charming, has all that wit and cleverness that we all have come to love from Cassie Clare, and really, I think, the problems all stem from figuring out how to put that wit and charm and *nowness* into something as alien as the Victorian era.




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