Book Review: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

**Spoiler Alert**

 

I Twilighted out on the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare's Official Site. In other words, I sucked the texts up like a dehydrated elephant in the Sahara desert. I was hoping for a similar quenching by Clockwork Angel on Amazon.com from the Infernal Devices series. The book wet my lips, but didn't rehydrate me. Instead, halfway through the book, dread itched at my conscious; the same dread I get when I realize that a favorite musician has begun to repeat beats and notes from their earlier songs (eg. Paul McCartney). Thankfully, Clare's supreme knack for an unforeseen twist squashed my angst and renewed my hope for the next book in the series.

 

Clare pulls a George Lucas's Star Wars with Infernal Devices. Infernal Devices is a prequel series to Mortal Instruments. Like the Star Wars' prequels, the nature versus nurture question is dragged out for scrutiny. Will Herondale is Jace's great great grandfather. His character exudes some of Jace's more emo qualities – Will is enigmatic and has a deep dark nagging secret. Is Jace's personality his genetical link to the Will Herondales of his ancestry or his upbringing by the evil Valentine?

 

We also get a snapshot of Alec and Isabelle's ancestry with a cameo by the Lightwoods of the 1870s. With the Lightwoods the philosophical question is whether racism is environmentally imposed or is inherited. The Lightwoods of the 1870's mirror some of the same prejudices of the Downworlders that the Lightwoods of the 1980s possessed.

 

Please bear with me for one more Star Wars analogy – Magnus Bane as Yoda. Like Star Wars, there are characters that live for generations. Magnus Bane plays the witty guru in the Mortal Instrument series and makes a cameo in Infernal Devices where he aids in suppressing the evil of the day. We also get a character background on Camille, Magnus Bane's 1878 girlfriend, who is also a character in City of Fallen Angels book.

 

Clockwork Angel was a semi-repeat of the Mortal Instruments series and, at times, it felt like an exercise in character development for the cast in Mortal Instruments or a gap filler like the “Short Second Life of Bree” book was for the Twilight series. But despite the similarities, I was still immersed eventually. The jacket cover gives you the summary. In case you don't have that handy, I'll regurgitate it here:

 

When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London's Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.

 

Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa's power for his own.

 

Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm's length . . . everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world. . . and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.

 

From the jacket copy, you can see what I mean about the echoing quality of the new series. Rinse and repeat. The similarities are numerous: girl finds out she's magical (the “OMG” I'm magical plot), girl has a hero's quest to rescue her brother (her mother in Mortal Instruments), girl meets gorgeous enigmatic Shadowhunter boys (Jace and Alec in Mortal Instruments), love destroys theme (Jace's relationship issues in Mortal Instruments), and the “which boy should I fall in love with” question (Jace versus Simon in Mortal Instruments). My prayer is that Clare does not turn into a format writer using the same plot with different characters and abase herself to the likes of Danielle Steele or John Grisham.

 

I don't pray for just anyone. I like jumping into Clare's imaginary worlds. Despite the deja-vu of Clockwork Angel, I tore through the book and anticipated reading it when dealing with my mundane world. The end of the story is what clenched my clock watching for when I can read Clockwork Prince. Clare sideswiped my attention with a twist at the end of Clockwork Angels that left the rails of predictability. And, for that I trust she will continue to surprise me with her imagination.