I loved Clockwork Prince. I talk about it in this blog briefly, and I mentioned how it brought me to tears at work in front of a bunch of dudes and how I didn’t even care because it was so amazing. I’m kind of one of those weird people that likes to make myself cry when I’m sad. I’ll already be sad about something, and then I’ll listen to some really depressing music, or watch some particularly gut-wrenching scene from a show I love just to squash around on my heart that’s already ripped out of my chest. This book was kind of like that for me.
But it also brought me to tears because of how beautiful it was. The struggle was beautiful. The ache was gorgeous. The characters are breathtaking. The story is poignant. And the experience of reading it, it’s once in a lifetime. [Only if you want it to be.]
Sort of side note: I don’t like spoilers. I hate when my tutor student is so excited about the last episode of SHIELD he’s watched, and even though I haven’t seen it yet and he knows this, he will tell me what happens at the end. Like right at the end, the big cliff hanger that makes the whole episode worth watching. And he does this all the time. Which is kind of cute/funny, but it also drives me nuts.
But with books, it’s different for me. I can read the end of a book and still feel completely engaged if I go back and read the rest of the book. And sometimes I don’t because I usually read the end to see if the rest of the book is worth reading, and ya know what? Some books just aren’t for me. Which is fine.
So here’s why this matters: Clockwork Prince is the second in The Infernal Devices series. (Which is perhaps my favorite series in the Shadowhunter Chronicles.) And I read it first. It was just sitting there on a used bookstore shelf in Burbank and I’d thought about starting the series, but they only had the second. So I picked it up and started reading and it was great. I didn’t care that I hadn’t been properly introduced to the characters - I could tell who they were just by how they talked and acted around each other. I didn’t care that I was missing a bit of bad guy plot because this book had it’s own bad guy plot and it worked. I didn’t care about who the bad guys were, I trusted my main characters and if they thought it was bad, I knew it was bad. And the times when people talked about things I didn’t understand, it was just that much more exciting for me, trying to guess what had happened and why these moments stuck with the characters as much as they did.
It was like a spectacular puzzle just for me. Because obviously Cassandra Clare didn’t intend for them to be read in this order, but that’s just how it happened and I didn’t mind one bit.
So now for the crying in public bit: There’s a love triangle.
A spectacularly brutal love triangle. And I am a sucker, a total sucker, for a good love triangle. This one was not just good, it was great. So great it just tore me to pieces. And what made this even better for me is that I had only had one book with these people. We were supposed to have two books to build up to this drama, to get to the point where it hurt. I only had one volume to fall in love with all three of these people so deeply that their heartache was my heartache. That they’re impossible choices ripped me in two myself.
I loved reading this book. I loved every second, every page. I loved that I had to keep guessing. And I love that it was so good that when I went back and read the first one, I was still never bored just because I already knew what happened. It made every happy moment bittersweet because I knew it didn’t last. And every sad moment sorrowful because I knew there would be no hope.
I love that books can make us feel like this. Or maybe it’s just me. I don’t even care if I’m alone in this. The idea alone that a book (about fictional people in a fictional, magical world) can make me feel so acutely the sufferings and joys of another… it makes me so damn happy. So. Damn. Happy. It reminds me that I’m not alone in this world, not ever. David Foster Wallace said that the purpose of fiction was to combat loneliness. Which is both a lonely and comforting thought. But for me, it is comforting almost all of the time. And rarely has it been more so with this book. This amazing, beautiful book.
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