I Suddenly Remembered My Charlemagne

Or, "I have reviewed 7 of these behemoths, and if you think I'm stopping now.."

So. Cassandra Clare. Don't bother. I don't really care about your thoughts on her.

As we all know, I am a lover of things, and as such I am mostly going to dwell on the things about this book that I really loved (which was most of it, to be honest, though sometimes it was kind of dense).

The Cover. The cover is FREAKING GORGEOUS. And on the inside of the cover there is an equally gorgeous family tree WHICH YOU MUST NOT READ until you are done the book. But seriously. When I took the dust jacket off to read, and saw what was on the inside, I FREAKED OUT LIKE CRAZY and it was awesome.

Tessa. Tessa hasn't always been my favourite person (and not just because she CONSTANTLY COMPARES HERSELF to book characters, particularly Cathy from Wuthering Heights, although there was a lot more Jane Eyre in this book), but in this book she had several moments of self-awareness that were just beautiful. Like when she was all "I should give myself up, and then they boys can have each other!" and then like ten seconds later, she realizes (rightly) that she is irrevocably part of their lives, and her sacrifice is going to hurt them as much as either of their sacrifices might hurt her. And then again several times at the end, in a way that is much more spoilery, including the EPIC BATTLE THINGY which just...took my breath away with its awesomeness.

MAGUS BANE. OH, MAGNUS BANE! You are a lying liar who loves, and I adore you. Everything he said just hit me RIGHT IN THE SOUL (except his line about the Lightwoods all looking the same to him. That made me giggle so hard I had to take a drink of water), AND THEN HE MOVED TO NEW YORK. He's just so awesome. I can't wait until his mini-series starts!

Charlotte and Henry. CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT CHARLOTTE AND HENRY? And that time the Stupid White Dude was all "Hey, you're a woman. Roll over." and Charlotte was all "BITE ME, YOU JACKASS" and Henry was all "I may be wearing two sets of goggles because I forgot I was wearing the first pair when I put the second pair on, but you, sir, have just crossed the wrong woman", and then he SOLD TICKETS and INVENTED SOMETHING AWESOME. SERIOUSLY.

(OH GOD, AND JESSAMINE KIND OF GOT REDEEMED! IT IS ALL I HAVE EVER WANTED FROM LIFE.)

Love. This whole series, much more than the other one, has been an extended essay on love, and not just the crazy things people do for it, either. We talk about love triangles a lot in YA. They are kind of our bread and butter. And Cassie managed to come up with a more-or-less equilateral love triangle (as opposed to a Love Angle, which is more often used and just as often misnamed), complicated by the fact that one of the angles was comprised of a different kind, though no less potent, of love. That was kind of cool. And yes, they all suffered and made terrible life choices. But obviously: they are characters in a book. And they lived, which they didn't think was possible, and they got to have each other, for whatever measure of time was allowed. And that was pretty freaking awesome.

It's been said that this series exists primarily to explain things in the latter half of the CITY series, or the upcoming LA spinoff. There's a scene with a sword that I can only assume will be important to the latter, and there were several (beautiful) allusions to the former along the way. But boxing up the CLOCKWORK series like that does it a disservice. It frustrated me, at times, for various reasons, but I really enjoyed it. Sometimes a thing is bigger than the pages it's written on, and I think that the CLOCKWORK series is exactly that sort of thing.

I'm not rating books anymore, and if you aren't already reading the series, this would be a terrible place to start, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I am looking forward to whatever comes next, be it Shadowhunter or Downworlder.

ETA: I might have to build a new bookshelf to be able to put this thing away. I mean, there are other books too, plus I have a few out on loan, but LORDEE, this book is huge!