Overall, this trilogy gets better and better, is written gorgeously and can easily surprise you with how attached you get to each of the characters, and each of their stories.
Hey all!
I just finished re-reading The Infernal Devices trilogy, by Cassandra Clare! This is a part of my Shadowhunters Marathon, and I loved every moment of it!
The Infernal Devices is an extension to the world of the Shadowhunters that Cassandra Clare presents in her Mortal Instruments series. Shadowhunters are half human, half angel people who protect humanity by hunting demons. They are fighters with a complex political system, and with a sort of ancient flair of grace and respect. In The Infernal Devices, we follow a group of Shadowhunters in Victorian London. If the time period isn’t great enough, imagine adding some steampunk to the mix. Magic, fighting, steampunk and fancy dresses? Sign me up!
This trilogy consists of Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, and Clockwork Princess. Many people loose hope with the trilogy after, or while, reading Clockwork Angel - it is a little bit formal and slow. But please believe me when I say the series, as a whole, is incredibly worth plowing through the first book. Clockwork Prince shows you more of the background of the characters, making you get attached to them without realizing. Then, once Clockwork Princess comes around, it is difficult not to be wholly invested in the series!
The main characters here are Tessa, Will and Jem. They each have very different backgrounds and personalities, but work together absolutely beautifully. I am usually not a biggest fan of love triangles (The one in The Hunger Games killed me), however this one is incredibly written, and very different than anything I have read before.
From now on, I’m writing this as one review so there may be major spoilers. Don't say I didn't warn you! As this is one review, and I'm guessing you are reading this having read the books, I'm not going to be introducing each of the books this time.
--> End of SPOILER FREE part!!
This is a series that definetly goes cresendo. Clockwork Angel definitely gives us a good start to a series - it has a good idea and an amazing setting, and we start seeing some character dynamics. You get some deciet, tensions and shadowhunter politics. But it's nothing mind-blowing.
Next you start Clockwork Prince, and you start feeling attachments to some characters. You start to really understand Will and Jem, there is more intrigue with Jessamine, Mortmain and a deeper interaction with the main characters and side characters. You start to really see the love between Jem, Tessa and Will. Overall this book is more impressive than the first one.
But then you get to Clockwork Princess, and that blows the other books out of the water. It is absolutely incredibly written: you feel what the characters feel, there is a great plotline, and an incredible finale. Now, I'm not usually someone who will cry when I read, but in Clockwork Princess, the emotions and character relations are written so amazingly that I cannot help but cry until the pages are blurry.
As we could see with the first three books of The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare's writing style improves with each book, giving incredible finales. Reading these back to back really makes you realize the time and thought put behind each and every one of the characters, weather they are in the main group or a minor side character.
I absolutely love the setting of this trilogy - I generally enjoy books taking place in Victorian England, but here, the combination of the 1800's, steampunk and shadowhunters was done perfectly!
Now, I want to talk about emotions. This trilogy made me giggle and smile with its adorable times (such as in Clockwork Prince, when Jem is super shy around Tessa), but it also made me ugly-cry over and over again in the second half of Clockwork Princess! This was especially when Jem 'dies', and Will feels their Parabatai connection snap, and he leaves Jem's knife by a tree with his own blood on it. Oh goodness just writing this is getting me emotional agian! Of course, the feels are also strong when Jem is back in the institute as a Silent Brother, to talk to both Tessa and Will, and when Tessa is thinking of her life with Will, until his death, when she is waiting for Jem on Blackfriars Bridge (Which as you can see I went to visit a few weeks ago and was amazing!)
Cassie Clare, you kill me with this book.
Tessa, Will and Jem are an amazing trio. I love how the love triangle isn't annoying - Tessa doesn't try to choose between the two, Will and Jem love each other enough to never have their love for Tessa come between them, and they each trust, respect and love each other to bits. It is amazing to read about!
I also adore the side characters - Magnus goes through quite a bit of character development in this series, and you get to see the histories of some of the shadowhunter families we know and love from The Mortal Instruments. I actually love the ships with the Lightwood brothers and Cecily and Sophie! I feel like they really fit well and bring some sweet relief to the story during some hard times.
Henry is awesome - he is such a dorky inventor, and I honestly think he at least deserves his own chapter, or short story!
What I did realize is that Cassandra Clare seems to really like the whole brother-sister issues. In this book, Will has a strange relation with his sister - he wants to keep Cecily away from him just as much as he wants to protect her. Tessa believes that Nate is her brother, even though he is not. I haven't read The Artificial Devices yet, but I'm sort of expecting more sibbling issues now, haha!
So, here is where I stand on the whole "team" thing:
- Jem is my book bae
- I love Jessa and Wessa equally
- TID is way better than TMI
- Parabatai relations struck me more than love relations
Overall, this trilogy gets better and better, is written gorgeously and can easily surprise you with how attached you get to each of the characters, and each of their stories.
I'm giving the whole trilogy a 5/5 crosses! The first two books would get 4-4.5 crosses, but the third book brings the entire series back up to a 5!
It took a lot of self-control to not gush all of my emotions into this review! But I'd love to fangirl with you in the comments!
Have a great day!
Stay bookish,
Caroline
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