Clockwork Angel is the first book in Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices Trilogy. Tessa

Gray is supposed to move from New York to London to live with her brother after her aunt’s

death but upon arriving she is kidnapped by two grotesque women called the Dark Sisters. They

tell her that she has shapeshifting abilities and are training her so that she can marry a man called

the Magister. They force her to shapeshift against her will to train her to better use her powers

for him. Weeks later she is saved by a handsome boy named Will (William) Herondale, who

takes her to a place called the Institute to keep her safe from the Magister, where she meets his

best friend Jem (James) Carstairs.

The setting takes place in the Victorian time period in London, which Clare goes into

great detail to describe creating vivid images for the reader of the different places the characters

go to throughout the book. She uses very good descriptive words to set the tone and the mood of

the scenes often reflecting what the characters are feeling. The rain when Tessa got off the boat

in London and the cold and loneliness of the downpour reflect how she felt upon arriving in

London. The way she describes the architecture of the different buildings is a great use of

inanimate objects for setting the tone and mood as well.

The dialog of the book however is inconsistent, Clare primarily uses vocabulary from the

Victorian period, but then words from a modern era will appear which is distracting because of

the huge difference in the two types of vocabulary. With love triangles being so common in

today’s literature, the love triangle between Will and Tessa v.s. Jem and Tessa isn’t very

original. As soon as the two boys met Tessa it was very predictable that a love triangle would

ensue.

Despite the dialog and love triangles the character’s appearances are well-detailed and

their personalities are believable based on their backstories and experiences. For instance, Will is

very closed off and snide towards other people because he believes that it is his fault for his

sister’s death, and doesn’t want to attach himself to other people for fear of causing their demise

as well.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading a book that has a lot of

action, with a bit of romance mixed in as well.