Howdy YAL!

Really 3.5 stars. To see full review click here.Note this review has spoilers since this is a fairly anticipated book I'll be using the spoiler code but there may be a tidbit or two that gets left out so I'm just giving fair warning now.Honestly, I have mixed feelings about Cassandra Clare. Her books for me are like mind junk food. They're not the best written (see has severe fan fic prose), but God that woman knows how to put emotion on a page. And her plots, though cliche, are addicting in a bad soap opera sort of way. That being said, I still feel icky reading her work mainly because of past accusations of plagiarism and I felt that parts of TMI were P2P fan fic. That being said though, I really do enjoy her Infernal Devices series and Clockwork Princess was one of my most anticipated reads for 2013.This book.This is going to be one tricky review because I loved a lot of things about this book. Like, with the exception of the heroine, I loved all the characters. I thought each of them were well formed and had compelling backstories for the most part. I loved the interactions with the characters too, particularly Jem and Will. And even the subplots weren't as annoying as they otherwise would've been.The main story also was fairly decent if predictable. Though I did get annoyed with a lot of things about the plot mostly involving Tessa.Essentially the book could've been about two hundred pages shorter if Tessa had half a brian. I know that sounds horrible but some of the choices she made in this book were just Disney Princess level stupid. And I'm not talking about the modern day Disney Princess, I'm talking about Snow White level Disney princess where a man had to come to save Tessa despite the fact she could've transformed into anyone at anytime and kicked Mortimer's ass via that way. But hey....And then when she was rescued....Okay, this is going to be a bit of a rant. One of the things I liked most about this trilogy was that it was so angst driven. That's why this love triangle worked. You really felt all relationships-though honestly at this point I sort of wish it would've been Jem and Will who got together and forgot Tessa since I currently have no tolerance for her but whatever...the point was, you understood that people were going to get hurt no matter what the outcome was. But what happened.....Well, Tessa got her cake and ate it too to sum it up. Okay, so she has those pesky immortality issues to throw some angst in there for a good measure but whatever. The point is, both Jem and Will both got precious Tessa and precious Tessa really didn't have to deal with any of their anger despite the fact that she and Will banged each other right after Will announced that Jem died.GMAFB!If you read this blog you know the one thing I despise more than anything else is grief sex. I don't understand how someone can think having sex can make their worries go away especially after the love of their life dies. It just doesn't compute. I get that coitus releases endorphins much like chocolate and exercise, but there's consequences. I'm only glad that it was Magnus not Jem who walked in on them. Though given how the book was going, I wouldn't have been surprised if Jem just....okay, I'll keep this PG-13.Best Feature: Engrossing read. I really do feel absorbed whenever I read a Cassandra Clare book. As flawed as they are, you becoming overwhelmed with the story the world. This one is no exception, though the plot was predictable there was just something about it that made me not want to leave the Infernal Devices world. I know it sounds strange and it's something I can't quite describe but it's a good feeling whatever it is.Worst Feature: Tessa. Oh, dear lord, I don't like Tessa. Which is sad because I really liked her a lot more than Clary up till this point. She's essentially a glorified Mary Sue who makes some pretty horrible choices in this book. And guess what, she gets rewarded? She gets both boys. Not even Bella Swan can attest to that since Sneezy came along and took boy number two away from her. But Tessa, she gets her cake and can eat it too. You can argue, I guess, that she really won't have a happy that like Will, Jem will eventually die. But still...not everyone should have a quasi happy ending and grief sex, grief sex, grief sex!Appropriateness: There's some violence in here similar to Clare's other books. Also, there's a sex scene as well. The language is mild. But definitely not for pre-teens.