Reviews with content warning for Infertility - Clockwork Angel

I've read this book for the first time in the summer of 2015, and I had absolutely adored it. Like, half of my diary entries from around that time - and even some months later - were basically just me fangirling over Will. He was essentially what I imagined my perfect boyfriend to look and act like (which, lol @ 2015-me for thinking I even liked guys). Overall, I found the Infernal Devices to be so much more interesting than the Mortal Instruments, and the characters to be way more intriguing and entertaining than, say, Jace and Clary. (Also, Will and Tessa never think they're siblings, so there's that added bonus of not having to deal with incest.)

This year, I finally got around to re-reading the book for the first time, and I'm very pleased to announce that I still loved it just as much the second time around! I did find a few things that bothered me that didn't occur to me five years ago, but they were minor and really didn't take away from my enjoyment, which is why my rating of 5 stars is still standing.

My absolute favourite aspect of "Clockwork Angel" were undoubtedly the characters. Obviously, my focus was a lot on Will and Jem, because their personalities just gave me a lot of entertainment. Will was very sassy and unapologetically himself , which made his scenes so funny that I chuckled out loud a lot and had a lot of fun reading the book. I also headcanon him as bi; he just really had "chaotic bi energy" written all over him (don't ask me why, I have no idea). Upon re-reading, he intrigued me even more, because I knew why he acted the way he did (read: very rude and mean at times) and could clearly see how tortured he was.

Where Will was the storm in the middle of the sea, Jem was the quiet after everything calmed down. He was extremely kind and sweet and just absolutely perfect in my eyes. He always knew just what to say to comfort others, but he also didn't hesitate to criticise Will if he didn't agree with him. At the end of the day, Will and Jem just really complemented each other very well, and I loved seeing them together.

Now, when I first read the book, I didn't particularly care about Tessa. I didn't hate or dislike her, but next to Will and Jem, she just paled in comparison. Which is why, when I started my re-read, I didn't expect anything from her; I just figured she'd be a nice main character but not as interesting as the boys. So imagine my surprise when I realised just how sassy she could be if needed! She certainly could hold her ground next to Will, and I loved their dynamics a lot!

Tessa had a lot of internalised misogyny, especially at first, which is something I completely forgot about. She was surprised at a lot of things that we don't blink an eye at anymore nowadays, like Charlotte wearing pants in a battle or girls being able to be violent and bloodthirsty. It was kind of interesting to see her have to challenge those views she grew up with and grapple with them.

I also loved all the other characters . They all differed from each other in some way or another, from Charlotte basically being their mother (and let me tell you, hearing that she was younger than me by now just about shoved me into my existential crisis of the month) to Jessamine and Will acting so much like siblings that it cracked me up. I also thought the villain was build up nicely; I did remember who they were, so I wasn't surprised, but I do think the way they were introduced was interesting. Jessamine did make me roll my eyes at times (definitely a victim of the patriarchy), but I did find it refreshing to have a Shadowhunter who didn't actually want to be a Shadowhunter.

I did think that the romance was a bit rushed; Tessa's first kiss with her love interest came a bit too early and took me by surprise, and not in a particularly good way. It wasn't unbearable and like I said, I adore the characters, but the romantic relationships weren't build up as well as they could have been. Plus, Clare wasn't really subtle about there being a future love triangle, which I found a bit annoying.

I know that a lot of people ship Tessa, Jem, and Will all together, and while I personally don't really do that, I can 100% see why people do. Even in this first installment, where the romance has only steered in one direction so far, you can already see how deeply they all will care for each other in the future. And I know the sequels will just get more intense.

Really, there were only two negative things that I realised this time around that I apparently didn't five years ago.

Number one is the fact that there wasn't that much action happening in the story. For most of the book, Tessa learnt things about the world and about herself, but it wasn't necessarily in a suspenseful setting? There were a lot of conversations and a big focus on the characters themselves, and I think that rather slow pace is part of the reason why it took me a while to finish the book. I can imagine that some people might be bothered by the pace.

The second thing were the descriptions. Clare loves to describe things in detail, be it people, buildings, or objects. I found it to be rather redundant after a while. Then again, I often have trouble picturing how things look like, no matter how much description is provided by the author of a book, so maybe this is just a me thing.

Overall, I just love this book a lot. The characters, especially Will and Jem, have my entire heart at this point.

Content Warnings

cait's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I find it rather difficult to transition from The Mortal Instruments to The Infernal Devices and back again. It’s not just that it’s the same world and such a similar plot – girl’s life is turned upside down and she discovers that she’s somehow part of the Shadowhunter world when she never even knew demons and their like existed. It’s certainly not the tone of the stories – TID is very, very dark when compared to TMI and has much more imaginatively detailed world-building than its present day American counterpart, assumedly because we can’t exactly Google Earth 1800’s London to see what the town looks like – or even, really, the characters’ interactions and behaviors.

I think a part of it is the name Herondale. It is not strictly Jace’s anymore; it’s now shared with Will – rightfully Wills’, if you will. (Teehee.) I feel like Clare did try to differentiate as much as possible between Will and Jace: Jace is blonde and beautiful and made of light and kindness towards the girl he cares about; Will is black-haired and cruel and dark and filled with an inexplicable rage and destructiveness. But I keep imagining Will exactly as I imagine Jace, right down to the blond hair and gentle golden eyes.

Part of me wonders if that’s just because of their shared heritage, as Jace is clearly Will’s descendant, but a bigger part thinks it might be their personalities: Both are snarky, aggressive, self-destructive, unwilling/unable to keep their mouths shut when they should, and fiercely loyal to the people they care about – though Will’s affection for Jem is far more evident that Jace’s for Alec. But I think a huge part of it is the mysterious darkness of their pasts that will be uncovered over the course of their respective series: Jace’s mysterious parentage, horrific upbringing, and concealed pain vs. Will’s mysterious flight from his parents to the Institute, horrifying secret, and wickedly cruel disguise for his hopelessness.

Both are willing to throw themselves in harm’s way with nary more than a smart comment, find amusement in things that they shouldn’t, and hope for the worst: But then comes the main female protagonist, a girl who knows nothing of the world to which she belongs as their lives become entangled, and they are instantly thrown off kilter as they fall almost immediately for a girl with messy hair and a love for all things nerdy … even though that word probably wasn’t invented yet in Will’s situation.

Maybe I should have viewed these books as character studies, I don’t know, but I do know it’s time to get to the point…

I enjoyed this book. It took me a while to figure out how to disentangle one series from the other – especially since I knew Magnus would eventually make an appearance – but, once I did, I got a full set of feelings and anticipations for this book. Even though I’ve read it, I couldn’t remember almost anything that occurred and was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists and turns this novel took.

I love the wider range of characters in this novel: It was nice to have some Mundanes join the mix and see how the Shadowhunter-Downworlder relationship was actually somewhat healthier earlier in Shadowhunter history than in TMI. I loved the relationships and the myriad personalities and the tribulations these characters faced.

The premise of this novel is a fascinating one: If no force of heaven or hell can overcome that which God hath wrought, what if human invention can? It most certainly seems like it will, but I can only assume that it doesn’t since Shadowhunters still exist in TMI.

We follow Tessa as she arrives in London from America to live with her brother following the death of the aunt who had raised her since her parents died in her toddler-hood. Greeted instead by her brother’s denizens, Tessa finds herself trapped in a world of horror as she is imprisoned by a pair of evil witches and forced to learn how to shapeshift into murdered person after murdered person, her brother’s life hanging in the balance, all in preparation for her impending marriage to a mysterious creature known only as the Magister. Hope comes in the form of Will, a Shadowhunter boy, who rescues her the night she is due to be married and, with the help of the London Enclave, they begin an investigation into the identity of the Magister, the rash of robotic creatures appearing throughout the city, the mysterious Pandemonium Club, and the location of her brother.

I really loved Tessa as a character. I loved all the different elements and obstacles Clare threw at her to drag her completely out of her comfort zone: American in London, family dead, kidnapped by witches who essentially torture her into doing magic, rescued by Shadowhunters who terrify her, Downworlder who didn’t even know the Downworld existed, unidentifiable Downworlder on top of that, separated from her last remaining family member, caught up in a boy with more issues than anyone can count, part of some sort of mysterious plot, robots attacking the world. It all seems like too much and yet it flowed so smoothly and so beautifully through the novel and never seemed to tip over the edge into absurd. Tessa faced all of these obstacles head on with amazing poise, wit, and strength. And I loved her for it.

I had so much respect for this powerful girl in a time when women weren’t meant to have any of their own power. She kept it together, managed to not make a fool of herself in situations in which 90% of characters would have, and was just the type of person I want to be and be friends with without ever crossing over into the realm of Mary Sue.

And then there is Jem. Oh, Jem, who I adore. I’d completely forgotten his backstory and was absolutely devastated to find out what his “disability” was. It’s rare these days to be introduced to characters who are going through so much without feeling sorry for themselves, who are ceaselessly kind without being boring, and who rise up when it feels like they should be sinking fast. The whole time the masochistic part of my mind was loving the tension and cruelty of Will, what I really wanted were those short moments with Jem, where he’d say something mildly or make a single gesture mean the world to another person.

My one complaint about Jem is that I feel like he’s not fully developed yet. I want to know what lights his soul on fire. What makes him angry. What it is that he fears. And I’m sure that I’ll get it, too.

I did struggle with this book initially. It wasn’t just that I was confusing the characters and the setting with TMI, but also that it took me awhile to move out of that world of quick action and battles to this one with social etiquette and proper phrasings. The beginning of this story, despite the action, does take a while to really get rolling. It was entertaining enough to be picked back up when I put it down, but it took me nearly 200 pages to reach that point where I couldn’t bear to put it down, I just had to speed through and find out what happened next and who the Magister was and what Will would do next and who would live through the battle.

Overall, a very solid Cassandra Clare experience. I have now moved back over to TMI - City of Fallen Angels to be exact – and am facing the same struggles in transitioning, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that I had finals this morning at 8am in my most difficult class of the semester and I decided to stop studying after only two hours and stay up til 2am reading Clockwork Angel instead.

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