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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first thoughts: paper towns by john green

I only finished reading it about seven minutes ago, so this will litereally be first impressions, in whatever order they want to come out:
- I love the idea that we all have strings inside. I'm a mugely visual person-- I'm also, as it turns out, a very visceral and tactile person, what with being almost legally blind. This means that I think mostly in images (and get inspired in images, but that's a post for another day, on the writing blog), but I trust how things feel more than how they look. And the strings make sense to both senses. It's true what the book says: it feels like we have strings. Mine have been kind of tightly wound this past week or so, and now I'm scared that they'll start snapping.

- I totally understand Margo's need to get away. I grew up traveling. I feel most of the time the way I imagine the Gypsies felt when they were told through the 40s and 50s and 60s that they need to settle-- confused, a little lost, vaguely resentful, restless-- very restless-- and like I could just leave at any moment, except that there's all these reasons why I shouldn't. If I was going to, I know the moment it should have been: after graduation, before I got news that I'd gotten that sholarship, in that one month window when my home life was less than happy, my boyfriend was a jerk, and I didn't have a plan for the rest of my future. I'm not sorry I went to school and have the life I have now-- it's infinitely better than it was then-- but sometimes I wish I had just gone, and I think this whole book is about what happens when you do, and when others have to pick up the pieces.

- I love that someone else who felt stuck in Orlando feels like that. It's like the book was written to tell me that that's how all of Orlando feels. This is probably the post-book-glow (it's like post-sex-glow, but a lot of times more pure because it's all how I interpret it) talking, but it really did go straight to several specific sore spots and longings in my own personal psyche, and that's unbelivably comforting.

- The whole thing is also amazingly romantic.

- I want to visit all these paper towns, the real ones from the end of the book, and write a book of my own about the experience. I want to pass on this book so others can read it-- maybe my neice who loves books as much as I do, or at least did, last time I talked to her*.

- I hope when we were in HS, we sounded as smart and creative and wonderful as Q and his friends.


*Maybe she can start a book blog herself. It would have been so awesome if I could have blogged about books when I was ten-- or when I was fifteen, and read over a hundred books in one year, because that's ALL I did.

in-reading notes: black hole sun

The cover says it's like Mad Max, but it's totally not like that. It feels more like Firefly meets the down-fall side of 1984 or something like that-- the cleverness and moral ambiguity of Joss mashed up with the grey and crumbling distopias that are made of corporations and do their best to crush souls. Firefly if they were kids trapped on the Vogon homeworld by way of the Mars from Total Recall.

It's very interesting. My mind is already spinning off ideas for novels and histories and plotlines that could easily cover several books, and that's the sort of story I like best: the kind that sparks inspiration. Who wants a book that's closed and tells you everything? There's no room for your own ideas there.

I think this one will be done first (it's currently a rundown between this and Murder In Vein to see who gets read and reviewed first, but both are due by Sunday and come out on Sept 1).