Clockwork Angel

Rating: 4 out of 5 Automatons

When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother in Victorian England, something terrifying is waiting for her in London's Downworld. Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, who are members of a secret organization called the Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she has the power to transform at will into another person. The Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa's power for his own. Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons. She soon finds herself fascinated by - and torn between - two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and Will, whose volatile moods keep everyone at arm's length. As their search draws them deep into a plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world . . . and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all. (Book Description on front and back flaps)

I absolutely loved The Mortal Instruments trilogy. It introduced me to a world of Shadowhunters, angels, demons, warlocks, and fairies all in the bustling streets of New York City. The characters in those books are delightful, strong, and funny and the plot and the action never ceases.

When I first found out that Clare was going to write a prequel to the MI trilogy, I cringed. Prequels are hard to do right. Further, when I read the plot for the first book Clockwork Angel I could not help but see the similarities between the MI trilogy and the Infernal Devices. Mostly in the characters.

Tessa and Clary: Change Clary into a tall, dark-haired girl from New York living in Victorian England and you get Tessa. They are both strong characters, but I seemed to like Clary more than I did Tessa despite their obvious similarities. Oh and both are helplessly attracted to the guy that treats them like dirt.

Will and Jace: Dye Jace's hair black and turn his eyes blue and put him in Victorian England's suits and you get Will. Granted, Will has an English accent, but they both have the sarcastic sense of humor, the tortured past, and an undeniable attraction to a girl they should not be attracted to. While Jace chooses to be in love with a girl that just might be his sister, Will shows an attraction to a Downworlder.

Jem and Alec: Turn Alec into an albino and you get Jem. However, Jem is much more likable a character than Alec is. Both, though, are the trusted friend above all else to the bad boy. The twist in this is that Jem also likes Tessa where Alec actually is somewhat in love with Jace. So many love triangles my head is spinning.

Jessamine and Isabelle: Both are gorgeous girls who do not want to be Shadowhunters. Their determination is to be normal. Again, though, I liked Isabelle more than Jessamine who is so unbelievably selfish that you just want to reach through the pages and strangle her where Isabelle has a few more redeeming qualities.

All in all I think the characters in MI are more likable. The characters in Clockwork Angel seem like carbon copies of Clare's previous characters that I had grown to love.

Now that I have said that I must say that, despite all these things, I still enjoyed the book. I love Clare's writing. Some people get bored with her descriptions. I remember reading City of Bones and just being amazed because it seemed like her words just jumped off the pages and pulled me into another world. Each word was sparkling with imagery and magic. This book has some of that same flavor but it is not as prevalent. It felt a little more stripped down and uncomfortable at times. There were moments I kept thinking "This is Victorian England. I don't think they would really be talking like this." But Clare has managed to modernize Victorian England in a pleasing way.

I gave it 4 out of 5 automatons simply because it lacked the same luster that the other series did. The writing was not as good. I almost gave it 3.5 but what Clare lacked in originality she made up with the introduction of clockwork creatures and being brave enough to make a story in Victorian England that feels like it could be happening anytime. I am still a huge fan of Cassandra Clare and I look forward to the next installment in this trio as well as the second trilogy in her Mortal Instruments series.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 Facial Piercings

Warning: This book review contains spoilers. If you have not read the book, please proceed with caution. Or come back and read it after you have read the book.

I am running a book club on Facebook and this was the choice for the month of October. Every time I saw it at good ol' Barnes and Noble I picked it up and looked at it but, for some reason or another, always put it back. I don't know why I do that because I always end up getting it eventually anyway. For the most part I was excited to finally read it.

The beginning is rough and hard to plow through. At least it was for me. All this background information that is told in a pretty mundane manner fills the first few chapters. I am not going to lie, I was about ready to give up on it.

Lisbeth Salander is the saving grace of the book. Well, I perked up whenever she came on the scene at the beginning of the book simply because she was not acting like a whipped dog like Mikael Blomkvist was. But she really is an interesting character. Some of the stuff that Larsson explains about her past is a little unbelievable (how can someone be so beaten down?) but I quickly gained sympathy for her where I had a hard time feeling bad for Blomkvist because he was a little whiny at the beginning.

Once the story gets going it really gets going. I loved the intensity as Blomkvist and Salander uncover clues. They make a perfect team too. She is an asocial genius hacker and he is intuitive and a good journalist. One thing I do like about Blomkvist is that he's the muscle that doesn't act like the muscle. There is more to him than his sex appeal as he proves with every turn of the investigation.

While I am on the topic of Blomkvist...His relationship with Erika Berger is, while interesting, somewhat unsettling. I have a hard time liking a character that has such an open and relaxed sexual relationship with a woman. And then he sleeps with Cecilia. Random. And, even more random, he sleeps with Salander. He is more man-whore than anything.

This was my initial response but, after thinking about it, I realized that all of these characters interweave nicely.

This book is mostly about violence and abuse toward women in all of its forms. The most significant one is rape obviously. Lisbeth Salander, Harriet Vanger, and several other women in the story (most just mentioned as past cases) suffer from abuse by the hand of a man.

One of the interesting aspects about all of this is their reactions. Harriet chooses to flee the situation. Lisbeth Salander chooses to return the violence tenfold. She fights back and chooses not to be a victim anymore. Not only with her attack on her attacker but also with her ability to hack into other peoples' lives. What I liked was that the hacking was compared to rape as well. Essentially, Salander rapes the men. This, to me, is the best form of revenge she can take. She despises Harriet for running away and, by doing so, letting other women become victims of her family's sick ways.

Lisbeth Salander, like I said, is the saving grace of the novel. I tend to feel that, once Larsson got out Blomkvist and Salander's background information at the beginning he was able to let the characters really come to life. Salander's dialogue, especially at the end, is entertaining. At one point I thought of them as Bones and Booth on Bones because of the nice exchanges in dialogue.

While this book is entertaining because the plot has endless twists and turns, the writing leaves something to be desired. There is a lot of telling and no showing. I like to think a lot of this has to do with the translation from Swedish to English, so I am not going to be too harsh about that. Once you get used to the straight-forward and tell-it-like-it-is style that Larsson engages, then you move along with the story pretty nicely.

I gave this 3.5 out of 5 facial piercings simply because of the rough start. It would have gotten a 4 or 4.5 if it had a better start and the writing wasn't so rigid.

Victory

I got a girl's digits today!

Not just any girl.

A girl I have been wanting to ask out for a few weeks now.

Yeah.

I rock.

Book Two

Inspiration comes in the weirdest places. I was at work one day and I saw the cover of a new book that had a rainbow on it. I recognized the place the picture was taken: Hawaii. For the second book in the Tales of the Unluckiest Lucky Girl series I wanted Olivia to go to an exotic/tropical locale. For the longest time I thought Florida would be great, but now I am going to have her go to Hawaii.

Hawaii is The Rainbow State, right? So that just makes the whole leprechaun thing even greater.

So...

Basically, Olivia is going to be chasing rainbows in Hawaii.

That's all I'm going to say.

This is a short post, but I just had to say that today is October 10, 2010 aka 10-10-10! Make a wish at 10:10 AM or PM because this will not happen again in our lifetimes unless we live to be over 100 years old and that is not likely.

Happy 10-10-10!

You Know You're a Book Nerd When...

I went to the mall tonight. For those that know me, they know that when I say that it usually means that I actually only went to Barnes and Noble and did not, in fact, see any other part of the mall. While this is usually true, tonight I went for the sole purpose of not going to Barnes and Noble. Sad day. Mark it on your calendar because it is a rarity for sure.

Instead of going to my beloved book store I went to JCPenney where I found this amazing deal on dress shirts. Who can beat $20.00 for a nice new white shirt? I know I couldn't. So I had to purchase.

After my JCPenney find I was in a shopping mood so I meandered on down to American Eagle which has quickly become a favorite clothes shopping place of mine. I found a new pair of pants for $20.00 and a couple new shirts. I was on a roll.

I still had time to kill so I decided I would browse around Barnes and Noble, figuring that with the time constraint I would be ok and not spend money on books I do not need.

Well, I browsed around and was about to leave but then I remembered that a new book by James Dashner had come out, so I wanted to see if I could just look at it. So I went back to the teen fiction section. There I saw my cousin, Brandon, and his newly-turned-twenty-year-old wife, Brittany. (They are a cute little couple I might add.)

I got to talking to them.

Brandon: We're looking for a book.

Me: What book is it?

Brittany: The...Pact?

Me: Oh! By Jodi Picoult?

Brittany: Yeah! That is the name!

Me: It's over here. (I quickly busted into retail, bookstore, customer service mode, walked down to the Fiction and Literature section and walked directly to the Jodi Picoult section and handed them The Pact.)

Brandon and Brittany were indeed impressed with my ability to just walk right to a book. We were talking about Terry Goodkind's amazing Sword of Truth series then they shared their plans for the evening where they would be celebrating Brittany's birthday. I told them I was going to see The Town and proceeded to tell them that it was adapted from a book. I really don't know why I was spouting off all this needless information, but I just grabbed the book right off the shelf and showed it to them.

Again, they were impressed. I played it off as...

"I never spend any time in here. I don't know what you're talking about."

Big sigh.

Yeah.

In case all the book reviews on this blog were not enough evidence I am going to confess right now: I am a book nerd. Barnes and Noble is, indeed, one of my favoritest places in the world.

There you have it.

Surrounded by Idiots

So awhile ago my headlight went out.

I fixed it. I was proud of myself.

A couple days later the other one went out.

I purchased the bulb for it. Got an extra one so that, in case another one decided to go out, I would be prepared. I had issues getting that one fixed so it was delayed in getting done.

A few days later I drove to Blackfoot for the Eastern Idaho State Fair. On the way back I got pulled over. The cop did not cite me for the light even though that was the reason he stopped me. No. He got me for not having my updated insurance to present to him. Lame.

I was given a couple weeks to put in my proof of insurance. I procrastinated and did not get it in until a day late. Oops on my part.

They sent me a letter saying "Hey, you missed this so you have to appear in court or pay this fine or else your license will be suspended." Oh crap.

So I got right on that and called them. They got my fax of my insurance. The next day they called and said that my case had been dismissed and that everything was fine. I would not have my license suspended nor would I have to pay anything.

Great! I was relieved but something kept niggling at the back of my brain with this feeling that it was not all good.

Lo and behold today I get a letter in the mail saying my license was suspended. WTF?

So I called the peeps. They said "Oh it was just sent out before they dismissed your ticket."

Ok.

Just to cover my butt I called the Idaho Transportation Department in Boise. They said essentially the same thing.

I hate how this little thing has blown up into a huge thing. Granted, I should not have procrastinated, but they made me feel like a criminal for not having it in. I am a law-abiding citizen. Get up off me!

So if I end up in jail because they didn't have their stuff together, let this be proof and documentation of what happened on my side of the story. I swear...Don't waste your time on me, all you law-folk. Go find some drug deals to bust.

Lucky Charm

My friend Joe Misrasi does some awesome digital artwork. He never ceases to amaze me with the stuff he comes up with. There is always such emotion conveyed in his work. Awhile ago I had asked him to do something that had to do with my book. All I really told him was that my book was about leprechauns.

Tonight he did me a great honor and made this piece dedicated to my book. I absolutely love it.


For more artwork, poetry, and other cool stuff, visit Joe's website here.

Thanks, Joe!