Clockwork Princess Made Me Ugly Cry

I read Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Princess a little over a week before Queen of Air and Darkness came out. When I originally pre-ordered QOAAD, I figured that it would take me forever to read all of the books in front of it, but as I just happened to obtain copies of the rest of the series a week before it came out, I had a Shadowhunter’s reading marathon. Clockwork Princess was the first book in that reading marathon, and I’m really glad that I didn’t finish it at work. I don’t know if I’ve ugly cried so much while reading a book — ever.

As this review is for the third book in The Infernal Devices, there are spoilers for the first two books in this series.

Tessa is now engaged to Jem… and now she knows that Will loves her too. Her heart is breaking because she loves them both, although she tells Will she doesn’t love him, and Will won’t mention his feelings for Tessa to Jem either. Jem is also dying. The supply of yin fen is drying up, and he cannot live without it. It’s a mess, and my heart was breaking for them, even though I googled the ending and knew what was going to happen.

Mortmain is still on the loose too. He still wants Tessa for some reason, and he’s not about to let a little setback stop him. Unfortunately, Mortmain kidnaps Tessa, and Will has to make the choice of whether to go rescue her, or stay with his dying parabatai.

If that wasn’t bad enough, members of the council are still plotting against Charlotte Branwell. Will they deem her competent enough to keep the Institute? Or will her career end up in disaster?

All these tangled plots make Clockwork Princess a masterpiece. Yes, I wanted to read these four very long books before the even longer Queen of Air and Darkness came out, but I could not put this one down. In this book, we finally find out the truth about Tessa’s heritage (which is complicated in itself). There are things that happen in this book that affect events in The Mortal Instruments series. If I hadn’t already decided to reread the series at some point, then I definitely wanted to reread the series after this. This book gave me writing goals: write in little inconspicuous lines in one book that are explained in a later series.

The last chapter and epilogue to Clockwork Princess made me ugly cry. Hard. Snotting up and everything. It was so beautiful. I warn you, don’t read it at work. This was one of the most beautiful but heartbreaking ends to a book ever. But it was the best possible resolution to this story that I could think of. And after reading this story, you’ll want to make sure you read Chain of Gold just as I will.

This was a gorgeous final book to an amazing series, and if you liked The Mortal Instruments, then I highly recommend you read this book.