Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Title: Clockwork Angel
Author: Cassandra Clare
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Published: August 31, 2010
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy
Source: Easons

The year is 1878. 

Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to.

Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them...

Producing words for this review was unbelievably difficult. Or I guess I should say is, because I'm still writing it.. but anyway! Not because it was perfect in all aspects and mind-blowing or anything, and definitely not because I didn't enjoy it, but I feel like my review should really do the book justice. So here it goes!

Cassandra Clare is an awesome writer, and that permeates the whole way through 'Clockwork Angel'. It's the sort of book where, even though the setting is more or less alien to us, and the story is fantastically fictional, you can still really connect with it and get a lot out of it. The book consists of a wonderfully unique plot in a wonderfully unique world, with awesome characters to whom you grow quickly attached, and it's all topped off with Clare's intriguing and evidently thought-out writing.

Clockwork Angel  (mid-prologue) begins with our protagonist Tessa, who receives a Britain-bound boat ticket from her brother, Nathaniel, who she hasn't really seen or heard from in a while. With her aunt's recent passing, and nothing else really tying her to Southampton, she decides to venture off to London, where her life is quickly and utterly changed.

That, the beginning, was my main problem. Though the plot was very interesting and Tessa seemed a compelling character, I just couldn't get into the book. And I think that's the case with a lot of Cassandra Clare's work, for me anyway; it just doesn't immediately click, for some reason or another. Maybe because she already has this big, awesome concept and story in her head and doesn't really slow down to explain it to us in the beginning, but I really don't know. However, as the story progressed, and Tessa joins up with Will, and then later, all the others at the London Institute, I could feel myself being really drawn into the story.

I guess that now makes sense, seeing as the the plot wasn't really set in place for a little while into the book, at which point I was loving the book! Another reason was that it took a bit for our characters to develop, which I really appreciated afterwards.

Tessa, Will and Jem were definitely the three central characters, I mean, that was obvious before reading the first chapter, so naturally, they were developed to a greater extent than the other characters. They each had three, very distinct personalities, and at first you just sort of take them at face value, because it's entertaining to see how they interact and whatnot, but as the story flows, you're shown exactly why they are how they are.
There was this particular part, when Tessa was learning of the boys' pasts, and I actually just stopped to acknowledge the reality of these characters; they weren't just 2-dimensional anymore, and I loved that! Oh and I also really enjoyed the relationship between the three, or more specifically between Jem/Tessa and Will/Tessa. Obviously, going into this series, I was aware that there would be a love triangle, but I was surprised at how natural it felt. They were like the more mature versions of the characters in Clare's other series, The Mortal Instruments haha!

The last 100 or so pages, were what really made it for me. The well-written action scenes, the huge plot twist that I did not see coming, everything! It all linked up perfectly. A great first book for what I expect to be an awesome trilogy!

Have any of you guys read this yet? What did you think of the ending?

Thanks for reading guys!