Book Review: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare once again wisps us away to a Victorian London populated with werewolves, vampires, Shadowhunters, warlocks, and demons in Clockwork Prince, the sequel to Clockwork Angel. The pace is fleet-footed with conflict, discovery, and angst-laden romance.

The tale opens with Charlotte Branwell answering to the Clave's investigation into the bungled Magister affair. The Clave blames Charlotte for the havoc that the Magister inflicted on the Shadowhunter and Underworld societies (the events depicted in Clockwork Angel). To avoid getting the boot from her post as the Head of the London Institute, she must locate the Magister in two weeks. With the main conflict set, Clare wends us through over four hundred pages of mini-conflicts that end with a deeper love for the character's she's created and a love triangle that's predictable, but tolerable.

Will, with the help of the wittily sagacious warlock Magnus Bane, learns that demons can be pranksters. Bane calls from the another world the demon who Will believed had cursed him to a loveless life. Will's biting japes and cruel comments toward everyone who tries to be close to him are explained by the curse, or lack of curse in Will's case. Too late for Will though. While he was off being emo and an ass to all who cared for him, Jem, his best friend, was capturing Tessa's affection.

Tessa and Jem weave their hearts together at first in their concern for Will and his erratic behavior and then in their concern for each other. They share late-nights together as Jem divulges the history of his illness and Will's part in helping to keep him alive. The intimate evenings lead to intimate kissing, affection and adoration, and eventually engagement. The Jem-Tessa relationship is oblivious to the hubristic Will. Once Will understands that loving others will not result in his loved one's death, he declares himself to Tessa who in turn declares that she is engaged to Jem.

Ahh, the love triangle. A concept so played. Honestly, how many times in your life have you been at your wit's end to choose between the deep, thoughtful guy or the spontaneous, life of the party guy? I'm sure there are femmes fatales out there that this happens to, but can't possibly be as often as the heroines of romance tales, starting near the time of Lady Guinevere and persisting like a politician near election time into the present day. Nevertheless, the Jem-Tessa-Will triangle is the first I've encountered where each character has a deep regard for the other. I'll have to wait for Clockwork Princess to hit the shelves before seeing how the triangle collapses.

Another tidbit to learn in Clockwork Princess is Tessa's history. Her beginnings are still an enigma. She does find out that her mother was a Shadowhunter, but she has no idea where her powers come from or why she has them.

Smaller plot items include the eccentric inventor Henry emerging from his intellectual mist to support his wife in her time of extreme stress. The couple learns that they're expecting a baby. Clare also reveals that Jessamine, the reluctant immature Shadowhunter, married Nathaniel, Tessa's evil brother. And, a gap-filler for the Mortal Instrument series, Magnus and Camille were once lovers.

Clare has a gift for educating the young adult audience on the severe detriment of isolation on one's happiness and using story to demonstrate the important role of friendship, family, and community in a person's happiness. Series worth investing in!

Book Review: Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Hallowed, the sequel to Cynthia Hand's Unearthly, flutters instead of soars. Where Unearthly had been a pleasant distraction from mundanity, reading Hallowed was a chore that had to be scratched off the list before I could go outside and play. Hallowed's writing is arthritic and the plot is immature.

Hand presents us the good and the evil contingents in the angel community; the good angel-kids versus the bad Black Wing angel named Samjeeza. And, that's the extent of the plot. There's a bad guy and he's scaring good kids. His threat is tenuous. Hand hardly births any details that would make the reader fear Samjeeza. She mentions briefly that the Black Wings aim to eradicate part angels from the Earth, but the reason is as ethereal as the angels themselves. The angel-kids shutter, cry, and quake in the presence of Samjeeza, but the reader is gifted scant understanding as to why. Even at the height of conflict (the size of an ant hill), when Clara confronts Samjeeza, Samjeeza appears less like the beefy bully at high school and more like the wheezing math genius who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet.

Then comes the love triangle – Christian, Tucker, Clara. Silky thin. Tucker and Clara who shared a summer of laughs and intimacy, who seemed destined for each other, are split by the mere fact that Clara will potentially live longer than Tucker. Ergo, she must be meant for Christian after all. That's it. They're both angel-kids; he's hot, she's pretty, voila soul mates. Even teenagers need more to keep them together than being modelesque and the same race. If you were worried about Tucker's feelings being crushed by his human lifespan, stop moping. Hand sets him up with Allison, a cameo character, at the end of the story.

I expected more from the sequel, instead what I received was a homework assignment to Hand from her publisher to carry the story further that received a C- in my grade book.

Book Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie is a story with an aftertaste. For weeks after reading the story I contemplated the world that Condie had dreamed up and how life would be if her fiction was our reality. Condie's dystopian novel drags readers through a society that enforces personal restraint by removing the burdens of choice. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely mentions in a lecture on restraint that rules - religious, civic, personal – coral people into good behaviors (eating right, driving safely, etc.). Condie's fictional Society demonstrates the extreme of rules or restraints through the life of seventeen year old Cassia and mirrors what Ariely discloses - that restraints and their concomitant good behaviors often come at the sacrifice of personal freedom. The eternal questions are how much personal freedom should a person give up to live in a civilized society and who determines the definition of civilized?

Condie addresses these eternal questions by creating a society that statistically determines its citizens' nutrition, careers, mates, family structure, and lifespan. The society that Cassia lives in is aptly named the Society. The Society's intentions are ones universally embraced – healthy citizens, no crime, happiness. They have statistics that support their invasive intervention in their citizens' lives. Cancer has almost been eradicated and each citizen contributes to the communal structure. Cassia's world is partially enviable. How wonderful would it be if no one you knew suffered with cancer, if every person worked to the best of their ability, and most importantly, if a hot meal was prepared for you everyday, three times per day?! Just think, no cooking, in my house that means no smoke alarms blaring!

The utopia of never having to make a meal again tarnishes paragraph by paragraph with each squeeze on Cassia's freedom. Meals are delivered, yet Society has purposely organized the farm-to-table process to not allow any one person to be self-sustaining. Only select people know how to plant, others to harvest, and others to prepare food; the full process is an enigma to the Society's citizens. Every activity has been likewise dismembered; creating an efficient but dependent community. Further, all communications are minutely monitored. No one has paper for writing or creating. All writing is done via a keyboard and a computer monitor that is in the middle of the living space provided to each family. Thoughts are the only thing allowed to be private and even those have been influenced by evangelizing respect of the Society. Only 100 paintings, poems, and songs remain from the Society's salvaged apocalyptic past; a dearth of creative expression.

Cassia's belief in the Society begins to erode with the death of her grandfather; another controlled event. When its citizens turn 80 years old, they are put to rest for all eternity. Statistically after 80, all sorts of dreadful aging begins in earnest. Aging that the Society deems unnecessary. On his deathbed, Cassia's grandfather encourages her to think, to question; a mental exercise that the Society has gone to great lengths to prevent its citizens from doing. In a compact mirror case that he bestows to Cassia, he shows her a hidden compartment that contains two non-sanctioned poems, one of which is Dylan Thomas's “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” He, and his mother before him, rescued the poems from destruction at a risk to their family's security and well-being. The import of her grandfather's risk and words prod Cassia to re-examine her assumptions.

Questioning authority directs Cassia toward doubting the Society's benevolence and its determined mate for her, her childhood best friend Xander. A rare computer glitch shows an alternative match for Cassia, Ky. The Society's attempt to suppress the accident vandalizes Cassia's naïve image of the Society. Her friendship and eventual romantic involvement with Ky exposes her to the odious, secretive actions that the Society is willing to take to ensure conformity. Cassia's final attachment to the Society's rules and propaganda are wrenched free when they ship Ky off to fight a pernicious war.

Matched is thought provoking, despite the, at times, stiff and droning writing. Other reviews reference Lowry's The Givers as a better read for accessing a similar dystopian story. Cassia and Ky's confrontation with Society's machinations continue on in Crossed, Match's sequel.

Book Review: Unearthly by Cythia Hand

Unearthly by Cythia Hand reveals the journey of a part-angel girl named Clara and her God-sent mission. Clara inherited her angelicness from her mother, her father is merely human. Each angelical, anyone with a touch of angel blood, has a mission to fulfill in their lifetime. Clara's mission is disclosed to her piecemeal in visions. The visions lead Clara, her mother, and her brother to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where Clara finds love, friendship, and ambrosial and earthly challenges.

Hand presents a love-triangle between Christian, Tucker, and Clara. Love-triangle's seem to be a staple of young adult fiction. I'm not sure if this a product of teens discovering the many facets present in one person or a fantasy that fictional characters must achieve. Rarely in reality have I known as many love-triangles as are found in fiction. Regardless, Hand develops the affections between Christian and Clara and Tucker and Clara well.

In Unearthly, Clara meets other teen-angels who are also struggling with their half-angel, half-human identities and with their divine destinies. The message is that no matter how bizarre and unique one's situation may seem, there's always another soul anguishing, enjoying, or otherwise along with you. Hand's characters demonstrate the solace of being with others like oneself and the strength that can emerge from the support of similarly-fated people.

Clara is not the perfect angel. She has a hard time learning to fly and falls in love with a boy her family suspects to be wrong for her. Clara's believable and yet, she's not the typical teenage female character – EMO, clumsy, awkward. Instead, she's confident and has a decent relationship with her mom. Kudos to Hand for realizing that not all teens are angst ridden.

Unearthly includes the “OMG, I'm magical” feature of young adult fantasy plots, but it's handled as one would expect it to be handled in the real world between a loving parent and their magical child, not as so often seen as an out-of-left-field surprise. In Unearthly, Clara's mom sits her down and tells her about her heritage as part-angel, much like the birds and the bees talk parents typically have with their adolescent children. Clara had already felt that something about her was different from other kids. Her mom's explanation clarified Clara's feelings in a supportive nurturing manner.

The failing in Unearthly is the weak development of the Black Angels. Hand reveals to us that the Black Angels are trying to kill off the part-angels. Flushing out the Black Angel conspiracy, could help readers feel more attachment to Clara and her lot and provide more anticipation in the story. Hand gives very little information on the Black Angels and the one prominent scene with the Black Angel is only window-dressing.

Book Review: Iron King by Julie Kagawa

Iron King by Julie Kagawa is a good train book. A train book is any book small enough to fit into one's bag for reading on public transportation and light enough in content to be able to be shoved aside so that you can gawk at the kid who just got on and who has enough metal jabbed through parts of his face to be easily picked up by a magnetized space ship.

The story offers the average salad bar selections of a young adult fantasy read – unknown magic revealed, a hero's quest, self-discovery, material impoverishment, and a few tried morality lessons tossed in for dressing. In Iron King, the heroine, Meghan Chase, discovers that she is not just an awkward teenager, but is also magical. The plot is as familiar as the strange birth mark that you've had and obsessed about since you were five. If you've read J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter or Clare Cassandra's Mortal Instrument series, you'll be familiar with the “OMG” I have magical power's plot. An adolescent discovers that her gawkiness and divergence from the cool crowd has absolutely nothing to do with her being a unique human being, but instead that she is a magical being – oddness explained and individuality finally embraced as a huggable trait. Why read the genre? Think of young adult fantasy books as disguised teenage self-help books and you may wish you had these “woobie” pages to hold onto when you had passed through the hormonal tidalwaves of adolescence yourself.

In Iron King, Chase's hero's quest is to save her younger brother who has been kidnapped by naughty fairies. She has to enter the forbidding world of NeverNever where the fairies live with a host of other scary and magical creatures. Kagawa paints a decent description of NeverNever's wilderness and barren landscapes, enough to see in the mind's eye Chase's treacherous passage. A quick montage of Chase's quest involves her meeting her biological father, talking to a cat, fighting off evil fairies, an unfounded love affair with an enemy fairy, and the rescuing of her brother by confronting the Iron King.

Kagawa hits key morality lessons in Iron King – respect for each other, the importance of honesty and compassion, and the “I'm OK, You're OK” adage. She also throws in a save your earth message. NeverNever land is being polluted by techno-trash (eg, discarded computers, mobile phones, TVs). The pollution, as in the real world, is slowly causing swaths of land to become barren and making the fairies sick. Chase's primary hunt is to find her brother, who has been kidnapped, but the one she must David-to-Goliath is to eliminate the Iron King and banish his use of techno-trash as an assured-destruction weapon. A big journey for a teen who just found out she wasn't who she thought she was.

Does the book bridge from young adult to entertaining adult read? Maybe. I finished it, which I can't say for young adult books that are only captivating for ten year olds. Yet, as an adult reader, the book is predictable and the love interest is not well developed and a bit too dramatic even for teenagers. Kagawa kept the ending open enough that I have a minor interest in dropping back into NeverNever to see what happens next to Meghan Chase; yet, it will be a while. It's not a rush out and grab the next book type of book.

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.