""One must always be careful of books," said Tessa, "and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.""
I've been wanting to get my grabby hands on Clockwork Angel ever since it was released. However, I kept on making excuses when it came to purchasing the series, either it was too expensive, the last book wasn't out yet or I wasn't in the mood for historical fantasy. When our school library purchased this book I was euphoric. I WANTED to read it. But homework and school assignments invaded my life and I couldn't sit down for even a moment to dedicate my time to reading. I don't know if this affected my mood while I was reading Clockwork Angel, but I found it to be easy to put down. I even chose binge watching TV series over reading this book... Whew! That was a long-winded explanation....
Now, I'm going to be the black sheep of the bookish life!
For the first 200 pages, Clockwork Angel failed to hold my interest. I felt that there was no originality within the first 200 pages. The Victorian London setting might have been different from The Mortal Instrument Series, but the Shadowhunter world was exactly the same. The information that I found to be extremely interesting in The Mortal Instrument was being regurgitated to me. There was nothing exciting, interesting or promising. In fact, I was quite bored, due to two things:
1) No new experiences or information was gained from the world.
2) I had no nostalgic feeling of being in the Shadowhunter world again.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the world-building was bad. I'm just saying that the world-building felt redundant.
Thankfully, after the 200 pages, Clockwork Angel started to gain its own "voice" and a spark that set it slightly apart from Clare's previous works. However, it still felt unoriginal and predictable.
Clockwork Angel introduces us to many new characters. The main character, Tessa, is a bookworm (yay!), but apart from that, she was quite a flat character, with no personality and I couldn't relate to her at all.
The secondary characters had, surprisingly, more personality than Tessa. Jem is a cool guy with a sad story. Will is arrogant, rude and sarcastic. I will admit that I didn't like his personality at first, but I did get used to it. Unfortunately, apart from his looks, I didn't see his appeal. He also has a tragic back story. These two characters are Tessa's love interests. I didn't see why both guys were attracted to Tessa and I honestly don't understand why she was attracted to them. Luckily, the love triangle took a back seat to the plot. However, judging from this book, I have a good idea whom Tessa is going to end up with... I think I do.
My favourite characters in Clockwork Angel is Charlotte and Henry. Charlotte is small and petite, but she's an independent woman who single-handedly runs the institute with an iron-fist. Henry is Charlotte's husband. He's an absentminded inventor and was so adorable. I honestly wanted this book to be written from Charlotte's POV or I wanted to read Charlotte's story. If Cassandra Clare wrote a story about Charlotte or 900 stories about Charlotte and Henry, I would read them all.
This review sounds like I'm bashing Clockwork Angel, but I did enjoy it. I liked this book, but I didn't love it. I WANTED to love this book, but my expectations were too high to be met. However Clockwork Angel has a solid plot, a cool historical setting, steampunk aspects and characters that aren't all bad to read about.