Magical Urban Fantasy Reads: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

April 27, 2011

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices, #1)

Goodreads Summary: 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 gas lit 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.

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My Take: I am once again brought back into the fabulous fantasy world of another terrific novel created by Cassandra Clare. How does she do it? Where does she come up with these characters and story ideas? And, how does she create such a detailed plot picture (without being too mind-numbingly detailed); a plot that draws you so intimately into the story?

This book for me was extremely dark. It starts out with the main character, Tessa, being disturbingly imprisoned and tortured by two awful Downworlder (Warlock) women known as the "Dark Sisters." Aside from being imprisoned, part of Tessa's torture involves the Dark Sisters giving Tessa a personal item from someone and torturing Tessa into shape-shifting into whomever the item belongs to. Shape-shifting is something Tessa never even knew she was capable of doing, but the Dark Sisters force her to shift, sometimes a dozen times a day, which is an extremely painful, agonizing, exhausting and debilitating process for Tessa. And, the only thing keeping Tessa from giving up all hope and fighting for her life is the knowledge that they have also imprisoned her brother and he will only be let free if she does the Dark Sister's bidding. And her brother is the only living family she has left!

I was immediately sucked in!

One thing in particular that I really liked about this book was that I got to see the point-of-view and true feelings of someone who is not a Shadowhunter. And, I got to see and finally understand why so many Downworlders despise Shadowhunters.

Cassandra Clare did really well keeping the storyline and descriptions in the Steampunk era, including the worldly descriptions, the characters' personalities, even the politics about how people are treated in that era, especially women.

After reading Cassandra Clare’s books; I always tend to check out her website to read through some of her descriptions and FAQ’s. Her website is http://cassandraclare.com/cms/home.

I found the characters she created in this book fascinating in their own unique way. I ended up really liking, disliking or despising each character. Check out Cassandra Clare’s character descriptions here: Infernal Characters.

This book was intense, action-packed, magical, horrific and mind-boggling all at once. When reading any book written by Cassandra, it is not possible to just fast read through parts of the book. If you do, you will likely miss something that is essential in the current or later books. And even though I was really into Cassandra's Shadowhunter dream, this is a sizable book of vivid detail that would normally take me 4 days to read, but I devoured this book in 2 nights. And it was delicious!

I would highly recommend that you read Cassandra’s books in the order of publication. For example: Mortal Instruments City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, Infernal Devices Clockwork Angel and then Mortal Instruments City of Fallen Angels, but it is not necessary. (The first 3 are linked to my review of the books).

This book left me really pondering about Cassandra’s Warlocks. How is a Warlock created? If Magnus hasn’t aged in several hundred years, did he stop aging when he was made a Warlock? Are Warlocks born or created? I can’t wait to have all my questions answered! That is what makes this whole series so fun and exciting!

So if you haven’t joined the amazing Shadowhunter world, come join now! Have fun and don’t always expect a happy ending.