Review: Clockwork Prince

I loved The Mortal Instruments so when I found out that Cassandra Clare was writing another trilogy I got really excited. But the first book was kind of a disappointment. Like many people I felt that the new series was just a rehashing of the first one but this time set in Victorian London. The character archetypes were pretty much the same. We had a leading lady who was introduced to a new world. A hot boy who had a bad attitude, a best guy friend who falls in love with our leading lady. And finally another female character who makes our lead feel uncomfortable in her own skin just because she's just that good looking. Even though I was a little disappointed by the first book, I dutifully picked up the second one the day it was released. It gathered dust on my shelf for a couple of months until the other day when I thought: "well hell, it can't be that bad" and decided to finally read it. And you know what? I was pleasantly surprised.

Clockwork Prince picks up pretty soon after we left off in Clockwork Angel. Tessa and her Shadowhunter friends are still trying to solve the mystery of Tessa's origins and what she actually is while they also look into stopping the dangerous Magister. And on top of that Tessa needs to come to understand which boy she wants, the gentle Jem or the wild and crazy Will. This book packs in just the right amount of teen angst with the steam-punk inspired fantasy. Cassandra Clare built off of the basics that she set down in the first book in a clever and refreshing way giving these new characters a different feel then her contemporary crew in The Mortal Instruments.

I think my appreciation for these book still steams from her first series. In The Mortal Instruments I built a love of the Shadowhunter World, this new prequel series is able to expand this love. But needs to lean on the books that came before it. I am still excited for the final book in this trilogy. When it is released I will do a more informative critique of the series. There's no real point in analyzing the picture until I have all the pieces I think. That being said there is something that I want to look at, but it's extremely entrenched in spoilers. If you've read the book or want to ruin it for yourself read that here.

So to sum it all up. This book was enjoyable and kept my interest in the series but I'm not going to pass my final judgement until I have read the final installment.