Review: Clockwork Angel

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*finally posting my old review to my blog, with some minor edits*

And so it begins, the prequel to Cassandra Clare's (deservingly) glorified fanfic story.

Tessa Gray (who thankfully has no relatives - that we know of! - named Christian), teenage American in the Victorian days, travels to London to see her brother - and ends up imprisoned by a pair of creepy old ladies. You know things are not what they seem when the globe in their house shows a completely nonexistent country in Europe between France and Germany (those who have read Clare's other books, especially City of Glass, will know that said country is Idris, home of the Shadowhunters.) Or when they insist that Tessa change into different people and creatures.

Clare has never shown a single shape-shifting Downworlder, Nephilim, or mundane before. So now you know, something is really up.

I enjoyed The Mortal Instruments immensely, but I think that this is when Clare started to improve to real auteur status. Despite the setting changing to the repressive Victorian age, there's still delightful comedy of the kind we remember from TMI to spare. And this is when Clare started setting the stage for her considerably more complicated multi-plots of City of Fallen Angels and beyond.

And, best of all, no ridiculous "incest" storylines! That was the one thing I hated about the original TMI trilogy. I mean really, what was Clare thinking?

To those readers who think Clare just wrote the expanded TMI universe for $$$, read this: Clare knows what the readers want, and she's more than able to deliver. As long as she puts out satisfactory literary creations, I will continue to count her among my favorite authors ever.

Also, after rereading, I've figured out that after seven years, I've been quoting the two sentences of "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck." backwards all this time. THE HORROR. XD

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