Entry tags:
Clockwork Storytelling
I have been meaning to write about Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Princess for about a week now and I have been having the biggest brain block about it. I don't know what I think about it! And I don't feel like recapping it!
Clockwork Princess very much continues to be the sort of thing that people will like if they like that sort of thing, and I happen to like most of that sort of thing--Tessa is still a strong, flawed, clever female protagonist who reads awesome nineteenth century novels (and reads them PROPERLY, not all Mormon-school-like; I'm looking at you, Bella Swann) including the ones that only crazy people read, like The Castle of Otranto. There are still major characters who are not perfectly healthy able-bodied straight white people (of course, the protagonist and her #1 love interest are, but I guess you can only expect so much from any novel that's become quite this popular. Sigh, people). There's all kindsa magic and demons 'n' shit. The Council is still a bunch of denialists who insist that nothing is wrong and try to scold our cast of intrepid heroes out of actually fighting evil because of politics, because this is still a Shadowhunter book and the Shadowhunter books apparently began life as a (plagiarism-ridden) Harry Potter fanfic which means the Council is basically the Ministry of Magic. But hey, I like Harry Potter and I used to quite like Harry Potter fanfiction, so whatever.
The love triangle in this book is LOLARIOUSLY overwrought, although nobody in it is quite as dumb as is usual for love triangles since they all actually like each other. Now that Will is no longer being deliberately ass-tastic to everyone, having abandoned his futile quest to make sure nobody ever loves him, my main issue with the love triangle is that it just goes on for frickin' forever and I much prefer reading about Charlotte kicking ass and everybody trying to defeat Mortmain and about Will's little sister being awesome. The dialogue is still hilarious, although many of the jokes seem to be inspired by other jokes (there is a line about girls stamping their feet, that sort of thing), but I did not catch Ms Clare outright plagiarizing anyone but herself. Tessa's shape-shifter power ends up saving the day, as one would hope and expect, and it does it in a way that I didn't quite predict, which is always good.
There was also a good amount of Magnus Bane, which was excellent, but I think there should have been MORE Magnus Bane because that would have been even MORE excellent.
So one thing I kind of appreciated about this book (although not as much as I would have if I were emotionally invested in any of the romances, which did not happen) is that, while Tessa marries Will and lives a long and happy marriage with him full of babies and grandbabies... she then ALSO goes on to marry Jem and, presumably, have a long happy life with him! (Tessa is immortal due to backstory. Jem... well, I'm not going to spoil how it is that Jem winds up young and human a hundred years after Tessa marries Will.) I still think they should have ended up a happy polyamorous triad, but (a) it was the Victorian era and (b) Jem was dying of demon opium, so I guess that wasn't an option.
Overall I enjoyed it but it did not kill me with feels, although it seems to have killed a lot of other people with feels and it was definitely designed with a blatant intention of inducing massive feels in the reader. I just... enjoyed it a lot. Cassandra Clare is not quite Sarah Rees Brennan or Holly Black when it comes to killing me with feels, it seems, for all that apparently the lot of them are best buddies.
Clockwork Princess very much continues to be the sort of thing that people will like if they like that sort of thing, and I happen to like most of that sort of thing--Tessa is still a strong, flawed, clever female protagonist who reads awesome nineteenth century novels (and reads them PROPERLY, not all Mormon-school-like; I'm looking at you, Bella Swann) including the ones that only crazy people read, like The Castle of Otranto. There are still major characters who are not perfectly healthy able-bodied straight white people (of course, the protagonist and her #1 love interest are, but I guess you can only expect so much from any novel that's become quite this popular. Sigh, people). There's all kindsa magic and demons 'n' shit. The Council is still a bunch of denialists who insist that nothing is wrong and try to scold our cast of intrepid heroes out of actually fighting evil because of politics, because this is still a Shadowhunter book and the Shadowhunter books apparently began life as a (plagiarism-ridden) Harry Potter fanfic which means the Council is basically the Ministry of Magic. But hey, I like Harry Potter and I used to quite like Harry Potter fanfiction, so whatever.
The love triangle in this book is LOLARIOUSLY overwrought, although nobody in it is quite as dumb as is usual for love triangles since they all actually like each other. Now that Will is no longer being deliberately ass-tastic to everyone, having abandoned his futile quest to make sure nobody ever loves him, my main issue with the love triangle is that it just goes on for frickin' forever and I much prefer reading about Charlotte kicking ass and everybody trying to defeat Mortmain and about Will's little sister being awesome. The dialogue is still hilarious, although many of the jokes seem to be inspired by other jokes (there is a line about girls stamping their feet, that sort of thing), but I did not catch Ms Clare outright plagiarizing anyone but herself. Tessa's shape-shifter power ends up saving the day, as one would hope and expect, and it does it in a way that I didn't quite predict, which is always good.
There was also a good amount of Magnus Bane, which was excellent, but I think there should have been MORE Magnus Bane because that would have been even MORE excellent.
So one thing I kind of appreciated about this book (although not as much as I would have if I were emotionally invested in any of the romances, which did not happen) is that, while Tessa marries Will and lives a long and happy marriage with him full of babies and grandbabies... she then ALSO goes on to marry Jem and, presumably, have a long happy life with him! (Tessa is immortal due to backstory. Jem... well, I'm not going to spoil how it is that Jem winds up young and human a hundred years after Tessa marries Will.) I still think they should have ended up a happy polyamorous triad, but (a) it was the Victorian era and (b) Jem was dying of demon opium, so I guess that wasn't an option.
Overall I enjoyed it but it did not kill me with feels, although it seems to have killed a lot of other people with feels and it was definitely designed with a blatant intention of inducing massive feels in the reader. I just... enjoyed it a lot. Cassandra Clare is not quite Sarah Rees Brennan or Holly Black when it comes to killing me with feels, it seems, for all that apparently the lot of them are best buddies.