Clockwork Angel

2.75 // i think you have to really feel attached to the characters to love this story and i wasn't at all. while i didn't necessarily dislike Tessa, i'm not sure why she was the main character?? she didn't actually do much. from beginning to nearly the end, so many things were just happening to her and she just had to go along with it. to me, this made her feel flat.

most of the characters felt that way tbh. the only one i felt any strong emotion towards was Will and that was just bc i found him incredibly annoying and unlikeable. however, i did feel rather protective of Sophie. i would've liked to see more of her.

i also noticed that Cassandra Clare (this is my first book of hers btw) loves an in-depth, multiple paragraph description of every room we enter and of every new character we encounter. which very much slowed down the pace of the story in a way that felt unnecessary to me.

another thing about the writing itself is that there is so much repetition of information and world-building we'd already established previously in the story. there was multiple times a character—mostly Tessa tbh—would ask a question that i could've sworn was talked about just a couple pages prior. also, this book is a great example of telling the reader everything rather than showing. it spoon feeds the reader so much of the information, there's no time for you to infer for yourself bc the book will tell you... repeatedly, as if you forgot or something.

some positives!! while i have so many complaints, i'm giving it 2.75 stars bc there was nothing i hated or deeply disliked about anything here. also, i do rlly rlly like the world. it seems to have complexities and intricacies to it, even if the story itself doesn't at all. my favorite thing about this though is Tessa's power. that's the one thing about her—any of the characters, really—that i thought was very interesting and i wanted to know more about it. i preferred the first half (and the ending) for this very reason. bc we actually got to see her use her powers in those portions of the story. her conflict regarding those powers and how they sort of gave her this identity crisis was also very cool. however, while i understand this is only book 1, i think that aspect could've been executed better and been given way more depth than Cassandra Clare gave it, thereby making Tessa's character a bit more dynamic and interesting.