Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
What in the world did I just read?
The second installment of the Infernal Devices series seemed to have been just a filler or a bridge between the first and third. At least that is my utmost hope, since I cannot come up with a better reason as to why Clockwork Prince received better ratings than Clockwork Angel.
To point out a few instances that annoyed the heck out of me without “giving” away much of the mostly lacking plot, I will start with the character of Tessa. I found her still very underdeveloped, although now she is adopting an air of “better than thou”, while most of the time being quite useless in moving the plot along. She does not have much depth and I just cannot muster up any sort of empathy or sympathy for her. Every other character is causally mentioned with regards to developing their personality, but fails to provide a greater union for the sake of the story.
The main plot is barely existing in this installment as the book primarily deals with a mixture of teenage angst, blossoming interests in the other gender and various other topics that would make for a great teenage soap opera.
None of the action, adventure and mystery of the first book was present in this one, only a 500-page dialogue that was mostly not even that important. There was one battle scene in the entire story (not that I am a bloodthirsty reader), which was disappointing when comparing it to the first book.
Even though I am disappointed by this installment, something kept me interested. Maybe it is still the hope of an epic finale in the third book and that a reader just has to endure the sometimes tedious bridges needed to connect all the missing links.
I will definitely read the third and final book of this series, but with some hesitation and suspicion.
