Collage By: Prakriti Shree Thuladhar 

“The Infernal Devices” is a trilogy. It includes ‘The Clockwork Angel’, ‘The Clockwork Prince’ and ‘The Clockwork Princess’. This series has been written by Cassandre Clare. It is a prequel to her earlier “Mortal Instrument” series.

The entire trilogy has a good plot which is fairly predictable. The characters are larger than life and the leads and “the good guys” in the story are all brave and honourable often sacrificing themselves for the people they love. This trilogy deals with a story set in the 18th century London in which downworlders (demons, warlocks and the usual magical creatures) and shadowhunters (that protect mundanes,humans, against the downworlders) live among the humans. The plot development is good and slow at times but the ending seemed a bit rushed.

The characters are lovable, which is usually the case with larger than life characters. The odd thing in this series is that everyone seems to be in love with someone and in the end all but two characters find true love. As for the two characters, one is the only one in the trilogy that ends up dying and the second is a demon who lives for eternity and has found love more than once in his life.

The entire trilogy quotes “A tale of two cities”, “The importance of being earnest”, Tennyson, Coleridge and Shakespeare a lot of times which is apt as two of the three leads are avid readers. The descriptions are not vivid and the reader does not get a clear picture at times but the conversations between the characters are comparatively much better. The third book in the series is the only book in which the author has focused on letting the characters write letters to each other.

All in all, the book has endearing characters and is full of optimism and goodliness. It’s a good read.