| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: High Violence level: Medium Back Cover: “In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Teresa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street—and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa's powers for his own dark ends. With the help of handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them. Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do? As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.” |
The first one, Clockwork Angel was truly wonderful, and I loved every minute of it. So I was looking forward to more of the same from this one. But from the beginning, something was off. The story felt darker, less about love and deep friendship and more about self-destruction. Will's mystery finally gets an explanation—hardly surprising—but Will himself becomes less and less admirable and more like the person he's been trying so hard to seem to be. Tessa continues to have that essential characteristic of a main character in a story that relies on slowly revealed mystery: the utter inability to pick up on the clues presented to her. This is also combined with a highly useful lack of willingness to ask questions, or to use her powers to get the answers she wants. (Seriously, all that time spent trying to figure Will out, when all she really needs to do is steal one of his buttons or something.)
And then there's Jem. His mystery was revealed in the first novel, so he's got to have something else to develop his character. And sadly, what the author has turned to is basically porn, advancing the rather improbable love triangle from the first installment. Admittedly, they didn't go all the way, although that seemed to be largely because no one had ever told them what happened next. But I'm pretty sure they would have figured it out in another few minutes if they hadn't been interrupted. And that's the point at which I stopped, so I can't tell you if further explorations were made later in the book. I suppose this is a natural outcome of the situation these people are in. If you're taught the rules of propriety without being taught the reasons for them, and then you're in a place where those rules are significantly relaxed, this kind of thing is much more likely to happen.
Even so, a huge disappointment.