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Book Review: Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare

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Book Review: Clockwork Angel, prequel of The  Mortal Instruments series, by Cassandra Clare

Book Description from goodreads.com: Magic is dangerous—but love is more dangerous still.

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.


**Warning: strong language and swearing in some parts!**

Magic is dangerous-but love is more dangerous still.

*sighs* What kind of soap-operatic shit is that!? I hate this line instantly.

I don't think Clockwork Angel is the most horrible book which I have ever read--it isn't, the action scenes and part of the plots are enjoyable to an extent. But oh boy, Clare's writing and her characters annoy me, the book as a whole annoys the freaking hell out of me, here're the reasons:

(1) The recycling of characters:

The main characters in The Infernal Devices series are the photocopy versions of the main characters in The Mortal Instruments series, plain and simple.  Tessa is Clary, Will is Jace, Jem is Simon and Jessamine is a bitchier version of Isabelle. Only that in TID series those recycled characters got different colors of eyes and hair, they were dressed in 19 century British outfits and they were living in a supposed Victorian era.

First we got the main girl, who is called Theresa Gray---Theresa Gray---Clarissa Fray---Do you see the similarity here? Why can't Ms. Clare come up with some other slightly more original names for her 'heroines'?

Tessa's similarity with Clary doesn't just end here. Clary was looking for  her mother, who was kidnapped by the villain, and Clary soon realized her mother had hidden a secret from her. On the other hand, Tessa was also looking for her brother in London, said brother was also kidnapped by the villain, later Tessa also found out her brother had hidden a secret from her.

Not only this, Tessa's attitude is just as annoying as Clary's. Clary's bitchy remark about how "fat, ugly people don't get to become vampires because ugly people probably don't want to live long" bugs the hell out of me when I read City of Bones. In Clockwork Angel, I found Tessa making a very similar remark on Brother Enoch's strange, frightening appearance: "It hardly seems worth living a long time if you're going to look like that."

Wow, Tessa was badmouthing Brother Enoch behind his back when Brother Enoch was trying to save Tessa's own brother Nate's life. How ungrateful.

Of course Tessa thought if you weren't beautiful, then living a long life, devoting yourself to gain knowledge and help people still don't worth it. The most important thing for her is to be beautiful, I got the message perfectly!

Simply put, not only Tessa is an recycled version of Clary, she is also as judging, ungrateful and rude as Clary is. AND THAT'S OUR MAIN CHARACTER.

And of course, the same like Clary, Tessa had to possess a special ability which no one else but her can wield. One big fat sign for Mary Sue, right?

Then we meet William Herondale, who's supposed to be a great warrior but who's also extremely handsome, cocky and filled with smartass remarks up his sleeves, who is rude to everyone else for no good reason. He's a copy of Jace Lightwood/Wayland/Herondale/Morgenstern/whatever. That's it.

The gentle, 'good boy' Jem is Simon in disguise, Jem is being designed to be the weaker part of the love triangle, I like him just as I like Simon, but I have nothing more to say about him.

As to the beautiful girl Jessamine, she's a slightly more interesting, but 100% more bitchy version of Isabelle Lightwood. I will get back to her later.

(2) Troubling behaviors/attitude from main characters:

When we first meet Will and Jem, they were both tracing a demon. Then they found out a young girl was slayed by the demon, but they hardly gave any reaction to her death. Isn't it just bad for Ms. Clare to spend more time to describe what Will and Jem look like, what clothes they wore then she spends time on describing how her two male leads reacted to the death of this innocent girl?

And I had talked about Tessa's bitchy attitude toward bad looking/strange looking people before. I also noticed that whenever Tessa met someone, the first and foremost thing she would notice about them is their appearance and she always judged them on how they looked. Here's one of the most outrageous example:

Tessa was trapped in the den of the evil doers(Dark Sisters), and a stranger had just broken into her prison cell. AND ALL SHE HAD NOTICED IS THAT THE STRANGER HAS "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FACE SHE HAD EVER SEEN, EVEN THE LINE OF HIS THROAT IS PERFECT"!???

WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER!?

Also,  Tessa was secretly jealous of the pretty women/girls (e.g. Jessamine, Lady Belcourt, etc), and looks down at ugly, strange looking people. That kind of attitude is just hateful.
Jem had once commented that he thought Tessa was pretty, but I don't think there's enough among of prettiness, which would be enough to cover up Tessa's mean-spirited, judging, ugly little heart.

There's also one things about Clare's supposedly Victorian characters that bugs me a lot. It's that for the life in me, I can't believe the ladies and gentlemen in the high society would be talking so rudely and directly to one another. I mean, even the rudest characters in Jane Austen's novels wouldn't talk in the same way like Clare's characters.

Remember Jessamine? I had said that she is a bitch, she's unbelievably rude to everyone when we first meet her, especially to Tessa and Henry. But oh god, shouldn't a lady be taught not to directly make rude remarks? And why would no one ever called out on her for being unladylike? Guess what's the worst part? The worst part is that when Jessamine was openly insulting a guest (Tessa), NO ONE--not Will, not Charlotte, not Henry, even bothered to stop her. Where's these people manner!?

Oh, now I can see that all these Shadowhunters are a bunch of wimps, they can't even stop a rude girl from insulting their own guest, and we're supposed to believe they are the fierce protectors who stood between humans and demons?

The same with Jessamine, whenever Will was saying rude things---even to a point he directly told Charlotte her husband was a useless piece of trash, still Charlotte, who was the head of the Institute, did nothing to shut him up. CAN THIS BE SERIOUS!?

(3) Failed attempt at making the characters strong, brave and likable

After reading 5 Mortal Instruments books and Clockwork Angel, I began to realize Ms. Clare seems to be unable to write likable characters (with the rare exclusions of Simon, Jem, Magnus and maybe Alec). When she tries to write brave, strong girls but they always turn out rude, judging, self-righteous and unlikable. When she tries to write complicated male leads with a haunting past, she only manages to make them into cocky, rude dickheads.

Just like with Clary, Ms. Clare tried to paint Tessa as the tough girl, here's one of her attempts:

Tessa shouted. "I won't let you give me to the Magister! I'd rather die!"

Well, then what about your brother Nate? Remember that supposedly the Dark Sisters still have him, Tessa?
That "I'd rather die" part, makes me almost want to laugh. Hadn't the Dark Sisters made it quite clear that the Magister wants to use Tessa instead of killing her?"

Not only this, after Tessa was taken under the Shadowhunters' wings, she began to doubt their motivation for helping her. I fully understand Tessa would be suspicious of the Shadowhunters' intention. After all the girl had just been kidnapped. But it bothers the hell out of me when Tessa never bothered to say one single, simple "Thank you" to those who had saved her. Is saying "Thank you" so difficult?"

Then Tessa complained in her mind how she hated having to be grateful when Charlotte borrowed her a dress to wear. That little bitch! You know what, it isn't like Charlotte was obliged to be nice to her at the first place!

And then Tessa and Will went undercover and sneaked into a vampire party, but when the two of them were surrounded by a roomful a vampires, Tessa just had to lose all control and screamed her head off when she first caught sight of her brother Nate being held captive by the vampires. I, for the life in me, can't think of any worst action to draw attention and endanger Tessa herself, Will and even Nate. Can she possibly do any worse to drag attention upon herself and Will by screaming and being impulsing and ACTING LIKE A FIVE YEARS OLD KID IN GENERAL!?

Will on the other hand, is as horrible a person as Tessa. The more I read the book the more I realize they deserve each other. For example, when Will discovered Tessa was in Jem's room at night, he came up with the following remark:

"Do you normally turn up in gentlemen's bedrooms in the middle of the night? If I'd known that, I would have campaigned harder to make sure Charlotte let you stay."(p.108)

Screw you! Will, you asshole!

I understand it isn't proper for Tessa to show up in Jem's room in the middle of the night, but what're you hinting at with your damn remark? Are you hinting that Tessa is a whore or she's a loosed woman!?

Not only this, in the middle of the story, Will thought about Thomas, the servant boy who once was his best friend BEFORE JEM CAME ALONG AND WILL TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THOMAS! Will totally forgot about the servant boy who was once his friend right after he found a new friend. He was still in good term with Thomas only because the latter happened to have the big enough heart to forgive him.

Don't tell me Will isn't a horrible person. Just don't.

(4) Failure in research:

Since Clare had decided that her character Jem as a half British, half Chinese who had spent his childhood in Shanghai, there're a few reference on Chinese culture.

And I, just happen to be a Chinese; which means I found Clare's twisting the little details of Chinese myth around a little bit difficult for me to stomach.

First, when Tessa first encountered Jem, he told her that Westerners like her and Will would be referred to as 'Yang quizi' in Chinese, which meant 'Foreign Devils'. Oh yes, Westerners were, and sometime still are, being referred to as 'ghosts' in Chinese because in Chinese myth, only dead people/ghosts have pale white skin and yellow/red hair!

It's ghost, not Devil! There's hardly any concept of Devil in Chinese traditional culture! GET YOUR CHINESE WORDS AND THE TRANSLATION STRAIGHT WHEN YOU WRITE THEM!

And the reference of 'Westerners=ghosts' fact is not some rarely known, difficult to access information, it's quite widely known that Westerners were/are being referred to as 'ghosts' by the Chinese. There're even a few English novels mentioning this fact, I recall one is called "White Ghost Girls" (www.goodreads.com/book/show/76…), the ghost girls in here mean young, underage Western girls.

Then the next thing I know, Jem revealed that that his parents were murdered by a demon called Yanluo. OMG!!!! Yanluo is the name of the king of underworld in Chinese myth, not a freaking demon!

There're many demons, ghosts and fox spirits etc in the Chinese myth, but King Yanluo isn't a freaking demon, he's an underworld deity, you hear me!?

(5.)The annoying love triangle

Don't even get me start with the love triangle! I know that it's a LAW for YA girls to have feelings for the total jerks instead of the good boys who at least can have a normal conversation with her without insulting her in every way possible!

(6.) The ending

The ending of Clockwork Angel, what a mess!

People have been swearing up and down that the ending part of Clockwork Angel is where things finally getting good. But all I can see is the Shadowhunters falling into the bad guy's trap foolishly and conveniently so Will can rush in for the rescue at the last minute. What a poorly designed plot twist!

Everyone: Will, Jem, Charlotte, Henry, all of these supposedly seasoned Shadowhunters, turned out to be complete FOOLS, who are ill informed, who can also be easily tricked and manipulated.  It looks like Clare had dumb-ed them all down in order to create tension and threat.

My goodness, these people are supposed to be warriors who protect humans from the evil demon race, but judging from the way how those Shadowhunters ran business, I wouldn't even trust them to guide me to cross the freaking street!

The ending...to be frank is almost a photocopy of City of Bones. People are arguing whether Ms. Clare is able to write something original for her series instead of copying her old creation. And my answer to this question is: No, she can't.

*major plot spoiler warning*

First, is there anyone really feeling surprised that Nate turned out to be a traitor?

Secondly, is anyone out there really feeling surprised that de Quincey isn't the Magister?

Also, I would have respected Tessa more if she really carried out her plan to sacrifice herself so she wouldn't be used by the Magister!

But no, Tessa tricked her way out instead of carrying out her plan for real, and I can't believe for a second the Magister would be fooled by her stunt! I don't believe it the same like I can't believe that You-Know-Who wouldn't personally check Harry Potter is dead for real with his own eyes and hands!

As to the Magister himself, he is so underwhelming as the arch villain.

Plus, why it's never explained that what kind of importance did Tessa's clockwork angel hold?

*end of plot spoiler*

At the end Will became even more obnoxious than Jace to a point that I was furious when I read what he had said at the end to insult Tessa. For crying out loud, Jace never suggested Clary to become his whore. Goodness, having a painful past isn't an excuse to treat everyone like crap!

Look at Jem, the boy had been tortured and forced to witness the horrible death of his own parents, but unlike Will,  Jem was still able to choose to be a descent human being instead of what he had experienced!

Now, I want to make two prediction before I read the sequels:

*plot spoiler warning*

(a) I dare say Will was cursed that if he cared for/loved someone else, then his loved ones would be put in harms way ever since he was a kid. I'm confident that my guessing wouldn't miss the mark by far. And Clare had wanted this to be the explanation of why Will was treating everyone like crap.

(b) I dare say the Magister's great evil plan is to have Tessa Changing into Queen Victoria or a member of the Royal Family so he could take over British, it's just pretty obvious.

*end of plot spoiler*

The Final Words: If you can tolerate annoying, sometime hateful characters, people acting like fools for most of the time and poorly delivered plot twists and 'surprises', then you might go ahead and read this book.
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Foulmouthed-Fangirl's avatar
I remember coming across this book in the school library last year. I'd heard a lot about Ms. Clare and her Mortal Instruments series, and the summary looked vaguely interesting, so I checked it out.
Now I am a person who loves books- and a lot of my favorites are admittedly pretty terribly written. I know they are junk, and yet I can't help but love them anyway. I am far from picky when it comes to stories.
I couldn't even make it halfway.
Tessa drove me insane! I kept looking for a reason to like her, believe me I did, but she's just so obnoxious. I can't remember the last time I disliked a main character so strongly!
I ended up returning it the next day, unfinished. Judging by this review, I didn't miss much.