A Magical Trip Into Victorian England

I usually don't enjoy prequels so much, especially ones set in another century. So, my first reaction to prequels is to cringe away. When Clockwork Angel was first announced that was my reaction. I thought the feeling of the book would be completely from the original Mortal Instruments series. Boy was I wrong. I think Clockwork Angel may have forced me to not judge a book by its classification, something I should know by now.

I love me some good period drama, so it was only normal that I was hooked into this book the moment Tessa was introduced. A typical Victorian young lady, brave-smart-bookwork that wears pretty dresses? It's like projecting myself into what I would like to believe was my past life. Tessa is in every way a perfect heroine, not a Mary-Sue and not really an Action girl even though she bravely faces danger. In many ways she reminds me of Gemma Doyle from Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle Trilogy. Both girls are fairly normal Victorian ladies that are suddenly thrust upon a magical world. I think this is the perfect type of main character to have in this sort of book since it allows the reader to project himself or herself onto the character more easily. Why? Well, because the reader can relate to the protagonist in that they're both from another country/place and suddenly find themselves thrust into an entirely different place with mysterious things and beings around every corner.  It helps for the atmosphere of the book to remain constantly mysterious with both the protagonist and the reader.

Now, lets move on to what the ladies really want to talk about: the boys gentlemen, Will and Jem. Yes, that's right, there are two of them which makes for an immediate love triangle.Will is very much like Jace from the Mortal Instruments books and that would be obvious since they're related. But, unlike Jace, Will seems to have something very very wrong with him, he is troubled by this at every moment during the book. Sadly, we do not know what this thing is, but I do know I've been wrecking my brain since I finished the book trying to figure out what's wrong. Will also makes the reader very bipolar towards him, in the sense that he can be adorable and sweet one moment and then the next you want to slap him, punch him or maybe even murder him. On the other side, we have James AKA Jem. As much as Will is the bad boy, Jem is the mysterious gentleman. He has silver hair, is sickly and plays violin alone in his room at night. What about that isn't attractive or at the very least fascinating? Jem reminds me of another character, this time from a manga, called Zero from Vampire Knight. Though this mainly has to do with his silver hair and the fact that I suspected he was a vampire at the start. That theory turned out to be wrong, as he is actually sick due to a poison he is addicted to and is slowly killing him. The book therefore also deals with a common problem among teenagers, drug addiction; except this time it's happening in another century. So, Tessa is faced with two very different boys to whom she is immediately attracted to for very different reasons. Jem would be the safe guy while Will is the bad boy. This first book deals more with her and Will's volatile relationship and I'm sure the next book will focus more on her relationship with Jem.

Some of the other character were delightful also. My favorite was Jessamine because, unlike the other Shadowhunters, she doesn't want to be part of the magical world in the slightest and was forced into it. She might come off very strong to some, but I feel she's actually very vulnerable and loving and we will see this side of her more in later books. Plus, she has a love of Victorian fashion that we both share and an exquisite taste in dresses. I also love Charlotte, because she's trying so hard to be a mother figure to all these teenager when she's hardly older than them herself. It was also great to see Magnus, a lovable character from the Mortal Instruments series, in a different light even though he remained very much himself. Camille, the beautiful and elegant vampire, was also wonderful to read, though she was hardly in the book. I would love to see more of her in the following books.

One of the things I liked the most about Clockwork Angel were all the mechanical aspects and I don't mean that in the sense of the writing. I'm talking about actual mechanics, robots, clocks, inventions, etc. Yes, I said robots, though in the book they are referred to as automatons. It was very interesting that Cassandra Clare chose this theme for this series and I'm very curious as to why she did so. It was very different from any other period drama I've read before, except perhaps for Frankenstein. I enjoy scientific details a great deal, so I was overjoyed to find robots in a Victorian era novel. The genre would be that of Steampunk and it really was occurring during the era the book is set in, with inventions based on steam like steamboats, locomotives, etc.

This leads me to another point and that is that I want to congratulate Cassandra Clare for her wonderful research. Not only did she research into the steam era, but she also researched the London of the time and it could be seen throughout the book in beautiful detail. As I read the book I actually felt as though I was walking through the London of the time; from the detail of the streets, to the smells coming from the river Thames, to the wonderful London weather, I felt like I was actually there. That's always and accomplishment for writers as not many of them pull it off very well. Also, the wonderful detail in clothes is always appreciated. Especially by a reader obsessed with period clothing such as myself, just imagining some of the dresses Tessa and Jessamine were wearing made me happy. Another point that deserves mentioning is that every chapter opens with a piece of a poem from the era (with the exception of a few) which delighted my inner English student at seeing some Lord Byron and a piece of my favorite poem Goblin Market.

I the end, I adored Clockwork Angel. It was very different than anything I'm used to reading with all the Steampunk elements and I must thank Cassandra Clare for awakening an interest in Steampunk in me. I can't wait to read more book like this one and most of all I can't wait for the next two installments of the Infernal Devices. If there's one thing Cassandra Claire is good as is leaving readers with a heck of a cliffhanger and Clockwork Angel is no exception.

I give Clockwork Angel 5 out 5 stars simply for the great amount of research the author did on the era, the great style of the writing and the stellar plot.