SPOILER REVIEW: Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

I was a little wary at the start- four pages in and we’d already witnessed a death! It was clear to me that, even though she was dead, Adele Starkweather would play a big part in this novel.
The other part of the prologue shows Will and Jem’s first meeting and I was really pleased to see this. It wasn’t something I thought we would ever be able to read and yet it shows us something about Will and Jem’s relationship that is vital to the readers understanding of them. I was a little shocked at the things Will came out with in the scene but then he thought he was cursed at the time so I couldn’t really blame him.

The first chapter was full of witticisms that I have come to recognise from Cassandra Clare and I particularly loved the scene which I like to refer to as the ‘Lightworm Incident.’ Here are a few quotes from that scene:

“And indeed it was, the arrow still protruding from its wet, grayish skin, humping its body along with incredible speed. A flick of its tail caught the edge of a statue, sending it flying into the dry ornamental pool, where it shattered into dust.

“By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles,” noted Will. “Has no one respect for the classics these days?”

There was also some brilliant relationships between characters, excluding our main one. I loved the interaction between Gabriel and Cecily, who we saw a lot of in this novel. Cecily was a female replica of her brother and I’m hoping that we’ll get to see more of her in Clare’s future novels, so far named TLH, concentrating on the second generation of Shadowhunters.
Sophie and Gideon were also very sweet together and I was really pleased that Sophie got to Ascend because I wasn’t exactly sure of what the process would entail and so it was brilliant world building.

The way in which Clare has weaved all of her books is amazing and she is an author that I idolise for this reason.

Now, I’ve noticed that this review is getting rather long so I’ll start talking about the epilogue now. I had no idea that it would end in the way it did but I was surprisingly pleased. I was very upset, though. The main reason for this was because we, the reader, witnessed Will’s death and, even writing this now, it saddens me. I was pleased that, eighty years later, Jem and Tessa met on Blackfriar’s Bridge and got back together because Tessa truly did love both Jem and Will. I don’t think Will would be upset with this because, at the end of the day, he was willing to let Jem and Tessa get married when he was alive. He cares for them both, just as Tessa cares for Will and Jem and Jem cares for Will and Tessa.

But this still isn’t over! Even though Clockwork Princess is the last book in the Infernal Devices trilogy, we still don’t know how Jem was released from the Silent Brothers and why. I can’t wait to read City of Heavenly Fire to find out.