Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Published: August 31st 2010 by Simon & Schuster

In a time when Shadowhunters are barely winning the fight against the forces of darkness, one battle will change the course of history forever. Welcome to the Infernal Devices trilogy, a stunning and dangerous prequel to the New York Timesbestselling Mortal Instruments series.

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…

I picked this book up as soon as I had finished City of Glass (as per Clare’s recommended reading order). I had heard from a lot of different places that The Infernal Devices series was a lot better than The Mortal Instruments, so I was extremely excited to pick it up. However, whilst it was mostly enjoyable, it didn’t blow me away the way I was expecting it to, which left me a little disappointed.

As mentioned, whilst I enjoyed the plot as a whole, I wasn’t completely hooked on it. It was fast paced, easy to follow and had some slower moments to help balance it out. I found the plot to be typical Shadow Hunter world, which was easy to step back into. I also enjoyed the steampunk aspect of the book, which is something I wasn’t particularly expecting.

I wasn’t entirely invested in the characters. Whilst I am interested in knowing what Will’s story is and why he is the way that he is and what happened, I’m not emotionally connected to any of them. None of them were stand out unique – which is another reason that I wasn’t entirely hooked on this book. I am also not committed to either #TeamJem or #TeamWill as of yet, but I do have an idea as to who I will eventually commit to – as well as an idea of what is going to happen to Jem by the end of the series.

I did like the fact that we got to see Magnus again! I did read somewhere after this that Magnus is the only character who has been in every single book so far – so I guess it wasn’t all that surprising to see him again. I do like the fact that we got to see more of his character from a different time period and to see his similarities and differences between TID and TMI.

The time jump between The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices was a little off putting and difficult to get into. I picked this book up straight after finishing City of Glass, so I struggled to make the transition between current day Shadow Hunters and 1878 Shadow Hunters. I think the time difference between City of Glass and Clockwork Angel also stopped me from really getting into the story because I kept forgetting that we had gone back in time.

All in all, whilst this book had an enjoyable plot, I wasn’t totally hooked and blown away like I was expecting to be. I am still looking forward to reading the next instalment because a lot of people have said that they are great books. I gave this book 3/5 stars

Goodreads Monday

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme hosted here. To participate, choose a random book from your TBR and show it off! Don’t forget to link back here and feel free to add your links to the comments so that others can see what you picked!

Hey everyone! As usual, I hope you had a good weekend. It was extremely sunny over here (but also freezing) so the weekend was pretty good!

This weeks pick for me is a book that I read a couple of years back, and one that I want to re read because I never actually finished the series off! I really enjoyed the first book from what I can remember, so I don’t really know why I didn’t pick up book 2 at the time.

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Published: March 22nd 2011 by Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers

Amazon: Wither

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape–before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden’s servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Find Me Here:

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Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

Published: March 10th 2015 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Amazon: Perfect Ruin (The Internment Chronicles, Band 1)

On the floating city, you can be anything you dream – a novelist or a singer, a florist or a factory worker… Your life is yours to embrace or to squander. There’s only one rule: you don’t approach THE EDGE. If you do, it’s already over.

Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close to the edge can lead to madness. Even though her older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. There’s too much for her at home: her parents, best friend Pen, and her betrothed, Basil. Her life is ordinary and safe, even if she sometimes does wonder about the ground and why it’s forbidden.

Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially once she meets Judas. Betrothed to the victim, Judas is being blamed for the murder, but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find—or whom she will lose.

I added this to my TBR a while back (I think some time after I read Wither, which was a few years back). I really enjoyed Wither and I was definitely excited to check out more of this author’s work. However, this book fell flat for me and I ended up DNfing it about half way through.

Whilst the plot itself had a lot of potential, I feel like the execution of it left a lot to be desired. I often found myself putting the book down to go an do something else and I really had to force myself to sit and read it for the amount of time that I did. The plot itself was relatively repetitive, as well as the writing, and I didn’t feel like it was going anywhere in particular.

Another issue I had with this book was the fact that I didn’t feel any connection with the characters themselves and, so, I didn’t really care what happened to them or what was going to happen to them throughout the series. I struggled to pick this book back up when I put it down because I didn’t feel that connection that I feel is necessary for a reader to have in order to enjoy the book.

I feel like the world building lacked a little as well. I liked the idea of the floating city and the edge and what could happen to you if you get to close to the edge etc. but I don’t feel like it was executed well. We weren’t given enough information as to why the city is floating and why the things that happened to the people who got too close to the edge happened. I feel like I would have maybe enjoyed this book a little more had the world building been there and the explanations as to why certain things were the way they were.

All in all, whilst I feel like this book had a lot of potential, it definitely fell short for me and my expectations. I found this book relatively boring and the world building was lacking. I gave this book 1/5 stars

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Published: September 27th 2011 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Amazon: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (The Mara Dyer Trilogy, Band 1)

Book Depository

Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.

I first read this book a few years ago and I absolutely loved it. I also read book 2 and enjoyed it just as much, but for some reason, I never actually picked up book 3! So, I thought I would have a re read of the first two books, so that I could finally pick up number three and then pick up the new instalment in this world – The Becoming of Noah Shaw! I loved this book just as much as the first time I read it and I cannot wait to move on to book 2!

Mara Dyer is a completely unreliable narrator. She suffers from PTSD after an accident that happened, so she hallucinates a lot and struggles to figure out what is real and what isn’t. As a reader, this makes it difficult to determine what is real and what isn’t and as soon as you think you have it figured out, something else happens to bring it all back into question. This left me completely on my toes, even though I read the book already.

I forgot just how great a character Noah is. He tries to help Mara, even though he knows he doesn’t have to and he sticks by her no matter how crazy she gets. I do wonder from where he knows her, because that was a detail that I completely forgot about and picked back up after my re read, so I am looking forward to seeing how these two are connected – where one character remembers and the other one doesn’t.

I wish we saw more of Jamie. I loved his character and the way he tried to help Mara based on his own experiences, even if they were slightly jaded or misplaced. He was an honest character and someone who really was a friend to Mara from the very beginning of the book and it was sad that we didn’t get to see much of him because of what happened – I am hoping that he will turn up some time later in the story again.

I loved the fact that Mara had an actual family at home who worried about her. A lot of books, whether contemporary or fantasy, often have missing family members or none because of certain circumstances etc. So it was a nice change to see a set of parents, together who, whilst they may have argued, cared about Mara and what happened to her and were willing to protect her – even if Mara thought they were being too overprotective. Daniel is a great support system for Mara, as well as being the annoying brother sometimes, which balanced out his actions some.

The plot kept me on my toes, largely because we didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t and the fact that certain things started happening without any idea as to why etc. I loved the way that everyday news helped make the plot what it was and it was done a subtle way that crept up the on the reader, rather than just being there in your face.

All in all, I loved this book as much as I loved it the first time! I am absolutely looking forward to re reading book two and I cannot wait for my copy to get here so that I can! I gave this book 5/5 stars.

Find me Here:

Instagram/Twitter/Goodreads/Litsy @ Lauren’s Page Turners

Other Reviews:

The Reader’s Bay

Ana @ The Book Smugglers

Chasing Faerytales

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted at Breaking the Spine

Hey guys! It is time for another WoW! This weeks pick is a book that I found pretty recently and I cannot wait to get my hands on it!

First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy

Expected Publication: July 25th 2017 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

It started for pranks, fun, and forever memories.
A secret society – for the four of us. 
The rules: Never lie. Never tell. Love each other.
We made the pledge and danced under the blood moon on the meteorite in the orchard. In the spot we found the dead girl five years earlier. And discovered the ancient drawings way before that. 
Nothing could break the four of us apart – I thought.
But then, others wanted in. Our seaside town had secrets. History.
We wanted revenge.
We broke the rules. We lied. We told. We loved each other too much, not enough, and in ways we weren’t supposed to. 
Our invention ratcheted out of control.
What started as a secret society, ended as justice. Revenge. Death. Rebellion.

I want to know EVERYTHING!!! This blurb is so mysterious that I just need the book right now!

What do you think? What books are you waiting for? Feel free to drop links and comments!