05 STARS – Page 47

The Infernal Devices #03: Clockwork Princess

April 24, 2016 / 05 STARS, CC YA THE INFERNAL DEVICES

Title: Clockwork Princess
Series: The Infernal Devices
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: March 19, 2013
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 570

When seventeen-year-old orphaned shapechanger Tessa Gray is kidnapped by the villainous Mortmain in his final bid for power, the London Institute rallies to save her, but is beset by danger and betrayal at every turn.

WrensReads Review:

Seriously don’t read this if you haven’t read the first two. That just isn’t right. Go from the beginning of a series and back.

Clare’s writing has exceeded my expectations in this series. And I am not sure if it is because some of the time I was listening to it by audio book or because she finally has found her niche. Her first series, The Mortal Instruments, had a great story with it (for the first few books anyway) but the writing was so mediocre that I just couldn’t anymore. I am rereading them to give them a proper rating, so stay tuned.

The conclusion of this book will break your heart.

This whole book breaks my heart. There has never been a more crushing or awkward love triangle. I can’t even tell you who I was cheering for. Each chapter I just cheered for the one I was reading about.

I find it odd that this whole story was never even mention in the first story. I know that it was written second and such, but it is a prequel and it was seriously a huge deal.

Women’s rights, girl not being saved but doing the saving, a creation (or creations really) that have never been done before, a HUMAN fighting against SHADOWHUNTERS.

All I can really say about this series is that it is 100% better than the first series in the shadowhunting world. The characters have dimension, the story isn’t predictable and the writing and dialog are actually funny and makes sense. There are more than one story going on at the same time which keeps your interest. All I have to complain about is the fact that everyone falls in love with someone around them and really that just isn’t something that happens. “Oh we all live under the same roof and I just met you but I AM LIKE REALLY IN LOVE WITH YOU.” Idk; maybe it was because they were in the middle of the war and they were all just looking for love.

I recommend this series to anyone who loves the paranormal and wants a really twisted story to read that is still appropriate for young adult ears.

Order to Read this Series:
The Mortal Instruments #01: City of Bones
The Mortal Instruments #02: City of Ashes
The Mortal Instruments #03: City of Glass
The Infernal Devices #01: Clockwork Angel
The Mortal Instruments #04: City of Heavenly Fire
The Infernal Devices #02: Clockwork Prince
The Mortal Instruments #05: City of Lost Souls
The Infernal Devices #03: Clockwork Princess
The Mortal Instruments #06: City of Fallen Angels

*The next two (The Bane Chronicles and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy) are optional. They are groups of novellas. I believe in reading novellas so you can pick up different things in the books that follow.

The Bane Chronicles #01: What Really Happened in Peru
The Bane Chronicles #02: The Runaway Queen
The Bane Chronicles #03: Vampires, Scones, & Edmund Herondale
The Bane Chronicles #04: The Midnight Heir
The Bane Chronicles #05: The Rise of the Hotel Dumort
The Bane Chronicles #06: Saving Raphael Santiago
The Bane Chronicles #07: The Fall of Hotel Dumort
The Bane Chronicles #08: What to Buy the Shadowhunter…
The Bane Chronicles #09: The Last Stand of the New York Institute
The Bane Chronicles #10: The Course of True Love
The Bane Chronicles #11: The Voicemail of Magnus Bane

Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #01: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #02: The Lost Herondale
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #03: The Whitechapel Fiend
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #04: Nothing but Shadows
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #05: The Evil We Love
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #06: Pale Kings and Princes
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #07: Bitter of Tongue
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #08: The Fiery Trial
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #09: Born to Endless Night
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #10: Angels Twice Descending

The Dark Artifices #01: Lady Midnight
The Dark Artifices #02: Lord of Shadows
The Dark Artifices #03: Queen of Air and Darkness

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The Infernal Devices #02: Clockwork Prince

April 6, 2016 / 05 STARS, CC YA THE INFERNAL DEVICES

Title: Clockwork Prince
Series: The Infernal Devices
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 502

As the Council attempts to strip Charlotte of her power, 16-year-old orphaned shapechanger Tessa Gray works with the London Shadowhunters to find the Magister and destroy his clockwork army, and in the process, she learns the secret of her own identity while investigating his past. Features a previously unseen letter from Will to his family.

WrensReads Review:

I love these characters. I love the chemistry and the forbiddance of half of their relationships.

Tessa has a pull to both of the young men staying at the Institute. Will, with his shut off manner and Jem, with his kindness and gentleness. Will is bipolar with how he treats Tessa. He is passionate and out of control one minute and the next he is saying how they can never be anything because she isn’t a shadowhunter and she is below him. Jem, is always kind and always sweet and always there for her and helping her.

You would think the choice is obvious, but when you learn Will’s side of the story and why he has to do what he has to do… you will be as confused as I am as to what team you will be on.

Is there really a team though? These boys are more than best friends and more than brothers; Will and Jem are Parabatai: Nephilim warriors who fight together as lifelong partners, bound together by oath. Their bond reflects on their closeness and willingness to lay down their lives for one another.

Basically, they are married but not in love or doing other married stuff. Being Parabatai is compared to a marriage a lot in these books.

So this is the typically “love triangle” but with one side of it being in love but not romantically…?

Then there is Jessamine, the other young shadowhunter living at the Institute. Sneaking out in the middle of the night in boy clothes? What in the world is she doing?

Charlotte and Henry, the leaders of the London Institute, are in a little bit of a pickle. Benedict Lightwood has challenged Charlotte (because everyone knows that she is the one actually leading and Henry is down playing with mechanical things) for the Institute. He says that a woman can’t lead like a man (my blood boiled just reading that) and that he would be better to lead it. So Charlotte’s little group of shadowhunters has two weeks to find the Magister and stop him from building an army.

Not as easy.

Wait… who is the Magister? What Army you ask? Well he is just a human building mechanical people to get revenge on ________________________!!!!

Clare’s writing, again, has rocketed. She has learned to tell her twisted stories more clearly and elegantly. The Mortal Instruments series was such a great story, but I didn’t like her writing style at all. It was totally her first book, which by all means does give her an excuse, and she needed more practice writing. Well, she got more practice and how her books have a higher rating in writing with me as well.

Clare has a way of telling a story and making you feel bad for someone that usually you wouldn’t have. She makes an impossible situation seem completely plausible when she wants it to and she makes you feel hopeless when she wants you to. A writer who can control your emotions like that is a writer that I want to read. It isn’t the story itself, but it is in the writing. I have a lot to learn from the way that she words.

This series is better than the first. Don’t give up because her writing seems childish in the beginning. This second series breaks and mends my heart and is worth getting through the first one. Because Lady Midnight, the first book of the third series, is one of the best things you will ever read and you can’t read that one without reading the first two series.

The Dark Artifices #01: Lady Midnight
The Dark Artifices #02: Lord of Shadows
The Dark Artifices #03: Queen of Air and Darkness

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The Dark Artifices #01: Lady Midnight

March 13, 2016 / 05 STARS, CC YA THE DARK ARTIFICES

Title: Lady Midnight
Series: The Dark Artifices
Author: Cassandra Clare
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: March 8, 2016
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 720

In a secret world where half-angel warriors are sworn to fight demons, parabatai is a sacred word.

A parabatai is your partner in battle. A parabatai is your best friend. Parabatai can be everything to each other—but they can never fall in love.

Emma Carstairs is a warrior, a Shadowhunter, and the best in her generation. She lives for battle. Shoulder to shoulder with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, she patrols the streets of Los Angeles, where vampires party on the Sunset Strip, and faeries—the most powerful of supernatural creatures—teeter on the edge of open war with Shadowhunters. When the bodies of humans and faeries turn up murdered in the same way Emma’s parents were when she was a child, an uneasy alliance is formed. This is Emma’s chance for revenge—and Julian’s chance to get back his brother Mark, who is being held prisoner by the faerie Courts. All Emma, Mark, and Julian have to do is solve the murders within two weeks…and before the murderer targets them.

Their search takes Emma from sea caves full of sorcery to a dark lottery where death is dispensed. And each clue she unravels uncovers more secrets. What has Julian been hiding from her all these years? Why does Shadowhunter Law forbid parabatai to fall in love? Who really killed her parents—and can she bear to know the truth?

The darkly magical world of Shadowhunters has captured the imaginations of millions of readers across the globe. Join the adventure in Lady Midnight, the long-awaited first volume of a new trilogy from Cassandra Clare.

WrensReads Review:

Really, I do not know where to begin with this review besides that it was 99% flawless.

Clare has stepped up her game since her first novel and has taken to a writing style that is pleasing to the ears, flows easily and holds your attention like teens hold onto their cell phones.

The majority of the characters in this book are those who we met in the later books of The Mortal Instruments series.

Now I think it is very important to say that you can read Clare’s stories out of order. The second series is a prequel, which means you can read it 2-1-3. BUT, personally, I think you should read things the way it is written. I say that because I like to see the evolution of an author’s writing. This series can’t be read without the other two being read first though BECAUSE it would be a huge spoiler since characters from both book series are in this one.

Carstairs Family
Emma: Heroine; Julian’s Parabatai

Blackthorn Family:
Arthur Blackthorn: Head of the Los Angeles Institutes
Helen
Mark: Hero; Main Role
Julian: Hero; Main Role; Emma’s Parabatai
Livia and Tiberius: The Twins; Supporting Roles
Drusilla: Supporting Role
Octavian: Supporting Role

Rosales Family
Cristina: Hero; Main Role
Diego: Supporting Role

Other Supporting Roles
Diana Wrayburn: Shadowhunter
Malcolm Fade: Warlock
Magnus Bane: Warlock
Clary Fairchild: Shadowhunter
Jace Herondale: Shadowhunter
Jem Carstairs: Silent Brother
Tessa Gray: Shadowlock

Okay, now that’s over with… back to the review…

This book separates itself from the other stories because it isn’t about a girl who didn’t know she was shadowhunter; it is a story about a shadowhunter girl seeking revenge for her parent’s death.

As I said before, Clare’s writing as SKY ROCKETED. She has become an even better story teller and writer, which is why I say read as the author writes; it’s amazing to see how they develop. Clare has always been good at dreaming up stories to write, and now she is even better at telling them.

This story starts after the Dark War with that one guy that was Clary’s brother (Sebastian). Emma is still trying to find out what happened to her parents, the faeries are exiled from all Downworlders and Shadowhunters, and the Shadowhunters have opened up a lot of different types of schools for new shadowhunters and specialty shadowhunters.

There is a killer of mundanes and faeries a foot and, after a series of events, the Los Angeles Institute has to go undercover, without anyone else’s help, to figure out what is going on.

Nope. Nothing could go wrong.

A question that I have ALWAYS wondered is why Parabatai’s can’t fall in love and get married. This series is going to tell us that. And for the character’s sake, I hope they find a way around it.

The book does have some closure, so she doesn’t make you want to throw the book against the wall because you have to wait for the next one. But there are many questions unanswered and there is going to be a lot of things happening; I can feel it.

Clare is a wonderful story teller and I am sad that I am all caught up and can’t continue the journey with her brain child.

The Dark Artifices #01: Lady Midnight
The Dark Artifices #02: Lord of Shadows
The Dark Artifices #03: Queen of Air and Darkness

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