Book # 28: Clockwork Princess

Title: Clockwork Princess (Book #3 of The Infernal Devices series)

Author: Cassandra Clare

Date started reading: March 29, 2013
Date finished reading: April 3, 2013

Publish date: March 2013
ISBN: 9781416975908
Number of pages: 592

Official summary: "If the only way to save the world was to destroy what you loved most, would you do it? The clock is ticking. Everyone must choose. Passion. Power. Secrets. Enchantment. Danger closes in around the Shadowhunters in the final installment of the bestselling Infernal Devices trilogy. Be sure not to miss the special first edition, complete with an exclusive family tree." (http://www.shadowhunters.com)

Official book trailer:

How I obtained the book: Pre-ordered from Barnes & Noble for $15.55 using a giftcard I received as a reward through Plink.com.

My commentary:

• SPOILER ALERT:  Leave it to Cassie Clare to come up with an ending that would leave all her fans happy. Tessa gets to spend an entire lifetime with Will, then Jem turns back into a Shadowhunter from a Silent Brother and she gets to spend another lifetime with him.  So ultimately neither Team Will or Team Jem could be upset. In some ways, I think that was a cop-out. She should've had Tessa end up with one or the other, not both. I understand not wanting to make your fans mad, but at some point, you've got to realize that not everyone can, or should, have a happy ending.

Memorable quotes:

• “Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.”  
• “All Lightwoods look the same to me.” ~ Magnus
• “You know that feeling when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing tight around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage and you cannot let go or turn the course aside. I feel now as if the same is happening, only not to characters on a page but to my own beloved friends and companions. I do not want to sit by while tragedy comes for us. I would turn it aside, only I struggle to discover how that might be done.” ~ Tessa
• “You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.” 
• “Sometimes one must choose whether to be kind or honorable. Sometimes one cannot be both.” 
• "I've heard that when I speak, it makes American women wish to strike me with umbrellas.” 
• “I am catastrophically in love with you.”  
• “You don't think I can fight. Because I'm a girl." ~ Tessa
  "I don't think you can fight because you're wearing a wedding dress. For what it's worth, I don't think Will could fight in that dress either." ~ Jem
  "Perhaps not, But I would make a radiant bride.” ~ Will
• “Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.” 
• “Requited love is nice, but it doesn’t make much of a ballad.”  ~ Will
• “Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.” 
• “Some secrets, she thought, were better told; some were better left the burden of the carrier, that they might not cause pain to others.”  
• “There is more to living than not dying.” ~ Jem
• “There are so many worse things than death. Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.” 
• “One does not question miracles, or complain that they are no constructed perfectly to one's liking.” 
•   “Choosing love or war: both are brave choices, in their own ways.” 
• “The world is a wheel. When we rise or fall, we do it together.”  
• “Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us.” 
• “Every heart has its own melody. You know mine." ~ Jem
• “To lose an arm or a leg would be painful, but to lose the central truth of your life felt — fatal.” 
•   “Hope is not an illusion.” 
• “I can tell you that the end of life is the sum of the love that was lived in it.” 
• “Every heart has its own melody.” 
• “Lack of certification hardly proves intelligence.” ~ Will
• “Life was an uncertain thin, and there were some moments one wished to remember, to imprint upon one's mind that the memory might be taken out later, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book, and admired and recollected anew.” 
• “I don't suppose it would help if I told you that is the way life is. The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away.”  ~ Magnus
• “When I am in the darkness, I will think of it in the light, with you.” 
• “One must look at the next step on the path ahead, rather than the mountain in the distance, or one would never reach one's goal.”  
• “Not all that is mortal is useless.” ~ Tessa

Buy on Amazon.com: Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices)