The Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare Booktalk & battle between TID and TMI

Synopsis: The Clockwork Price is Cassandra Clare's final installment in her The Infernal Devices trilogy. It follows Tessa's journey towards marriage and the troubling illness which seems to be catching up to her fiancée with haste. After a few shocking discoveries about Mortmain's whereabouts and his intentions, and after a sudden kidnapping of a much loved Downworlder, the race begins to save Tessa's life whilst Jem's progressively nears the end. The members of the London Institute face a big decision to make, betray the Clave or betray each other?

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So I just finished reading Clockwork Princess and was left literally shattered. The book throws so many different emotions at you that it's seriously too much to deal with. When Jem died, or when we at least thought he had, I cried for about 3 hours straight. The way Cassandra described Will's pain and then Tessa's grief made me feel like I myself had lost someone and without him in the story it kind of felt like I had! Admittedly, I think Cassandra should have left Jem dead. He had said his goodbyes and made peace without everyone (except maybe Tessa) and I had just about managed to stop crying when WHOOPS JEM POPS UP AGAIN. I was so confused at first and felt kind of angry to be honest because I didn't want some miraculous cure to have popped up last minute which would have been completely cliché and predictable. I didn't expect him to become a silent brother, he never really mentioned even considering it before and I'm sure he told Tessa he would never wish that life for himself? What changed? We never really found out...

I don't mean to rant because I genuinely did love this book but I did not like the epilogue. I thought the ending was perfect; Tessa was going to marry Will which was what I had been rooting for since the very first chapters of Clockwork Angel, basically everything ended happily. The epilogue was sad, the description of Will's death was heartbreaking but it was expected. I half expected Tessa to make some big gesture of suicide so she would not have to see all her loved ones die but it because obvious pretty quickly that that wouldn't happen. The description of modern day London was strange, I was so absorbed in the 1800s that i'm not entirely sure I liked the transition to 2008. When Jem turned up as his old self, I knew I would be irritated by what came next. How could Tessa simply swap the love of her life like that? I felt it was a kind of betrayal of Will's memory but I do understand that she loved both of them.

Overall however, this was an amazing end to the trilogy. The way Mortmain was defeated was suprising and a realllllly bizarre plot twist which I loved! I'm glad that everyone was together with someone in the end, Sophie had Gideon and Cecily had Gabriel. I really liked the character development of the Lightwood brothers in this book, I felt it was convincing and a nice addition to the Institute family. Cecily was also a really likeable character, she reminded me of Will and I simply love him and she was just really straightforward and likeable.

Now to the second part of this blog post, which was better, The Infernal Devices or The Mortal Instruments?

I loved the The Infernal Devices probably because it was set in London, it was set in one of my favourite periods of history and the characters were really well developed because there were less of them.

The two books obviously shared the same characters but the storyline in The Mortal Instruments was much more detailed and in depth simply because it is spread out over more books. I found myself surprised more in The Mortal Instruments, there were more shocking twists and more subplots within the overarching plot.

The Mortal Instruments however was not perfect, some books in the series were better than others, City of Glass being the best and City of Ashes being the worst in my opinion but I feel The Infernal Devices generally sustained the same level of quality.

The Infernal Devices was definitely written better, I feel Cassandra gets better at writing with every book she publishes and this trilogy was well thought out, the storyline of all three books was clearly carefully planned and it was generally a very easy read without too many unanswered questions.

Overall, I feel The Infernal Devices was better because the characters were more convincing and a story is nothing without its characters. The research for this book was extensive; Cassandra must be well travelled and well read to be able to write about places in London which I myself have not even heard of despite living there for 18 years. With the release of City of Heavenly Fire being released in a matter of months, my opinion may change depending on how the series in rounded up and how heartbroken Cassandra's ruthless and inevitable slaughter of main characters will leave me.

Please let me know which you think is better, TID or TMI?

Allegiant Booktalk

Synopsis: The third instalment in Veronica Roth's 'Divergent' trilogy. Told in dual perspective from the two protagonists, it follows the journey of our much loved characters to a place outside of the City they didn't know existed until the shocking conclusion of the last book. After learning that their beloved City was not all they thought it was and after finding that everywhere they go seems to be ruled by corruption, Tris decides that steps have to be taken to save her City and her relationship. A truly brilliant conclusion, if you haven't read the first two books, STOP READING THIS AND GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT. 

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This book has broken me. Like seriously, I stopped reading it last night and was too much of an emotional mess to formulate a sentence let alone write the booktalk straight away like I usually do. 

I haven't read anything for a while because I've been at uni and have had A LOT of work so I found it hard to fit in time to read anything but when Allegiant came out I knew that everything else would have to be put aside for a few days. It may be because my mind was preoccupied or because I could only sit down for an hour at a time before I had something else to do, but I didn't find it as easy to get into this book as I did for the other two. When it got to 2/3rds in, I couldn't put it down, but up to this point I feel nothing really happened. Tobias' involvement in the mini-rebellion was the only bit of action that got the pages turning however this scene was over way too quickly. The other parts of the book up to this point were mainly explanatory, describing what the world outside the City was really about which took a lot of explaining. It was just a bit less exciting than the first book which had a cliffhanger at the end of EVERY BLOODY CHAPTER.

The concept was really confusing, I got really confused about who was Divergent and who wasn't and what the difference was between GD and GP and the Allegiant and WAHH MINDFUCK. 

This was the first book that we saw a dual perspective between Tris and Tobias. I loved this because Tobias is one of my favourite characters but in a way I feel it was unnecessary to a certain extent, Tobias' perspective didn't really tell us anything that Tris' perspective couldn't have and Tris' chapters were always more exciting. After reading the end though I know that Tobias' perspective was needed :'(

There was a lot of death in this book, I didn't really care about Edward but I don't think Tori needed to die, and her death was so quick and sudden, it was almost like everything she had done for Tris in the previous books didn't matter because Tris seemed so unfased by her death. THEN THERE WAS URIAH's DEATH:'( He was by far my favourite character so as soon as the explosion went off, I knew this book would send me into emotional turmoil. His death was really prolonged for some reason, I know it was probably to build suspense but what with everything else going on, I kind of just assumed he was already dead. 

And then,

There was Tris' death.

OMG. Why the actual fuck would she let Caleb live after what he did. I understand that it was a selfless act that she had been preparing herself for in all three of the books, as in she had never really understood what proper sacrifice meant but why did she have to die :( When she survived the death serum I was like 'YESSS SHE HAS SURVIVED' but the sacrifice still held the same weight because Caleb surely would have died. BUT THEN DAVID HAD TO COME AND FUCK SHIT UP. I was literally in bits when her Mum came to take her away, like I couldn't even see the page through my tears anymore and I just had to take like half an hour to compose myself. Then Tobias found out and it set me off again, I always saw Tris and Tobias as a pair, like they couldn't survive without each other so in a way I could see how devastated Tobias must have been. 

I genuinely thought that the scene where Tobias spread Tris' ashes was the most beautiful scene in this whole trilogy, possibly in any dystopian book I have ever read. It was perfect and I feel that is exactly what Tris would have wanted. I was glad as well that there was the 'two-and-a-half-years-later' epilogue because I would have been so sad ending the book knowing Tobias was still devastated, it was nice to see that he had found at least some peace with her death but that her memory was still not forgotton. 

I am actually talking about them like they're real people LOL.

What I liked about this book is that we were able to see outside the City, outside the story we were already familiar with. I feel like there's still so more than could be explored, another 10 books could be made out of this concept easily but now we only have the films to look forward to :'(

If you want me to review anything or have anything to say about this post that you agree or disagee with, comment below or send me a message on my Tumblr account http://www.tumblr.com/blog/readwithsophie

I'll try to review more regularly, and I will DEFINITELY write a review of Catching Fire as I am seeing it THE DAY BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE BITCHESSSSS. NOT LONG NOW!

Switched by Amanda Hocking - Booktalk

Synopsis: The story is told from the perspective of a 17 year old girl called Wendy who suffered a brutal childhood after her mother tried to kill her as she believed her daughter had been switched at birth. After the mysterious Finn turns up at her window and tells her she belongs to a Troll community called Forening, she discovers stolen truths about her childhood as well as duties she couldn't possibly be ready for. All this is sprinkled with a little bit of mind control and a serious case of mixed signals.

SPOILERS

Okay so I'd probably give this book like 3 and a half stars. 

It started out pretty abruptly with the details of Wendy's mothers murder attempt and to be honest I did think to myself 'what have I got myself in for starting this' but I'd paid for the book so I WAS going to finish it.

I didn't actually think the book was all that well written, it was a pretty basic narrative and I just didn't relate to the protagonist, Wendy all that much BUT I did really like the storyline. I thought it was really clever how this small 'Tyrlle' community existed within modern day America undetected from humans, maybe there's a little troll community down by the River Thames which a hot brunette will take me to one day;)

The story was very very similar to The Selection series in my opinion in how Wendy has to learn to be like a Princess and stuff but she doesn't actually want royalty and she thinks she's not cut out for it and blah blah it just rang a few bells in my head! 

Finn wasn't the most desirable love interest I have ever read about to be honest, I still don't really understand why he had to be so mean to Wendy at the school dance, if he wanted to push her away there are other ways to do it! Also he didn't really have very interesting dialogue, his whole 'it's my job' refrain got kinda boring and he just seemed really overly professional all the time never really showing a fun or interesting side... obviously Wendy was only interested because of those eyes she kept going on about.

TEAM RHYS even though that's slightly though not biologically incestuous. He was one of the few characters who seemed to have a personality and actually showed his feelings towards Wendy openly.

I did feel really sorry for Wendy when he real mother, Elora, turned out to be such a b**** I mean she can't really catch a break can she! I was hoping Elora would loosen up but she was still nagging Wendy about everything even when we find out how much the regime relies on Wendy to succeed, just being nice might have made her daughter want to try harder!

My favourite scene was probably the christening-vittra-invasion-dance bit because I was waiting in eager anticipation for Elora's painting to come true and I knew from mid way through the book that it would happen on this night.

The ending was a little disappointing... basically the story just went in a full circle and Wendy ended up exactly where she started just with an extra guest... It's obvious she'll get kidnapped by the Vittra now that she isn't protected so she's basically ensuring her own death sentence PLUS wasn't the reason she left in the first place to protect Matt from the Vittra but now that she's in even more demand she thinks it would be a good idea to put her family in the limelight? Good going Wendy. Oh and also, so Finn basically sacrificed his job, his home and his friends all for nothing then because the only reason he left is so Wendy could become Princess. It was a weird and stupid ending not going to lie but up until the last few pages it was actually really good!

Admittedly I probably won't read the other two books because I read the blurb and know that there's an emerging love triangle in the next couple of books and I hate how some authors assume that all Young Adult's want to read about is bleeding love triangles. I can pretty much predict the ending of this trilogy and so it doesn't overly appeal to me but they are cheap to buy on the Kindle so I'll wait and see!

Sorry if this booktalk has been slightly short and critical, I did actually enjoy this book as a whole so it's worth a read if you're looking for something light to read :)