Book Blog #313: Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

 

Title: Clockwork Angel

Author: Cassandra Clare

# of Pages: 479 (paperback)

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London's Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos. Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, 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 of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm's length . . . everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane 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.

Review: I don't think there's much else to be said about this book that I didn't already say about Clare's The Mortal Instruments series almost 10 years ago. Both were written only a handful of years apart - I wasn't expecting any major growth in that span of time and unfortunately was not pleasantly surprised.

The flaw that gets them all - third person POV switching. Honestly, since it was in the third person, the POV switching was less offensive that other books I have read. I wouldn't hold it too much against it even if there was slight overlap with some of the POVs. 

What REALLY annoyed me though (similarly to The Mortal Instruments) was the main character, Tessa. Surprise, surprise, she's a huge book nerd. People who are writers have a higher likelihood to ALSO be big readers, so if I were to take a guess, Tessa has adopted the same love of books that Clare does OR Clare is pushing this character trait to try to make her protagonist more relatable. Try as she might, she tried a bit too hard, and it came off disingenuous.  I'm supposed to believe this girl can only relate to others through relationships she's read about in books, yet also has no problem getting along with the wide variety of personalities around here?

Speaking of wide variety of personalities, while each character is very different, many of them have one over-exaggerated quality that defines them. Will is "tsundere" type, Jem is the un-ironic version of the "me, an empath" meme, etc. It makes the roles they play in the story SO predictable. 

On a positive note, I knew this would be a pretty mindless and quick read because of Clare's simplistic writing style. She reiterates important story points, so it's easy to skim quickly through the book and still basically be able to know what is coming next. It was also pretty easy to visualize each scene in my head - there are a lot of "thriller/horror"-eque moments that I'm sure would play out as a jump scares if it every made it on the big screen...

Not the worst thing I've read, but not a very original piece of fiction either. I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you already liked some of Clare's other books. 

Book Blog #312: Palo Alto by James Franco

 

Title: Palo Alto

Author: James Franco

# of Pages: 211 (paperback)

Genre: Adult, Short Stories, Contemporary

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: James Franco’s story collection traces the lives of a group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism. In “Lockheed” a young woman’s summer—spent working a dull internship—is suddenly upended by a spectacular incident of violence at a house party. In “American History” a high school freshman attempts to impress a girl with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner during a classroom skit—only to have his feigned bigotry avenged. In “I Could Kill Someone,” a lonely teenager buys a gun with the aim of killing his high school tormentor, but begins to wonder about his bully’s own inner life.

Review: Palo Alto reads like a book that is written for Franco rather than for a certain audience. As someone who grew up in Palo Alto himself, he is writing to "memorialize his youth" (his words for the essay at the end of the book), so it is difficult to criticize this "artistic" fictional manifestation of his raw childhood experiences. 

And yet criticize is what I'll do. The first major flaw is the POV switching. Since it's a collection of short stories, the perspective is going to change between each story. If this was the only POV switching this could have been fine - one story is completely read through before beginning a completely unrelated story from another high schooler. but unfortunately within each story there is first person POV switching between each chapter.

To make matters worse, the POVs are all told in first person. When I start a new chapter, I struggle to figure out who's POV it is because I have to wait for someone to mention the protagonist's name. Is this a character that was already introduced to us? Have I read from their perspective before? Are they related to any of the other characters I've already been introduced to? There was an instance where I was forming a new character in my head, only to realize the character was the same Teddy from a couple of chapters ago. 

Franco said in his closing essay that he purposefully removed the unifying factor from the collection of stories (so the short stories do not all fall under some unifying theme or purpose). This would be fine if there was more obvious division between each of the stories. But with the way the POV switching was executed, this was not obvious at all. 

This book is short, but it took me forever to read - I was just not interested enough in the short stories to pick it up again. It's a slice of life where each story doesn't necessarily have a strong message nor are the characters very diverse in their personality. All of them read as troubled, dysfunctional, wild, or delinquent, maybe all of the above. Since this is based off of Franco's youth, I'm assuming this is the crowd that he surrounded himself with, but the way Franco portrayed them did not make me any more intrigued to hear these fictional characters' stories. 

Franco of course is no masterful writer. Regardless of where his true passions are, to me he will always be an actor first and a writer second. His simplistic writing style makes his book read like a YA even though the content matter leans more adult. 

I could have lived just fine without reading this book. I feel neutrally about James Franco (he's fine as an actor, but I'm not a big enough fan to just be reading this book because of him). I don't feel as if I gained anything from these short stories either. But that actually feels perfectly fine. Something tells me that it doesn't matter to Franco if anyone likes it or not - he probably would have written it anyway. But in the eyes of a reader, this book was mediocre at best.