Third Sentence Thursday: CLOCKWORK ANGEL

It's Thursday again, somehow, and time to play along with Proud Brook Nerd. Here are the rules: "take the book you are currently reading and post the third sentence of the third chapter. Feel free to share one or two of the following sentences, if you’d like."

 I'm rereading Cassandra Clare's CLOCKWORK ANGEL because I want to read CLOCKWORK PRINCE and realized that I'd forgotten much of the plot of the first book. I experience this problem more than I'd like to admit, especially with books that have fast paced plots. 

Since I read them so fast, I think I retain less. I should coin this Harry Potter Reading Recall Syndrome, since, similarly, I read every one of Rowling's tomes and can barely remember a sliver of the actual plots. Yes, I could just read slower. But it's sort of like eating a bag of potato chips all in one sitting. Sometimes it's hard to stop experiencing something you enjoy!

The third of the third:

"As Tessa watched, their features changed, their eyes sinking into their heads, their hair falling out, and stitches appearing across their lips, sewing them shut."

Intense. Examining this line reminds me that there are a lot of moments that I think are meant to be gruesome and horrific in CLOCKWORK ANGEL, but they don't truly have that  impact on me. I may be jaded  due to my recent immersion in the genre, but the automatons and various cruel supernatural creatures in CLOCKWORK ANGEL don't horrify me. I prefer it that way, actually. Clare's Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices series appeal to me because they're cozy. It feels like there's always a cushion behind the bad things that happen in Clare's novels. 

I realize this sounds like an insult, something along the lines of saying the books don't have high stakes or emotional impact. But I read Clare's books because I enjoy them so much. Crazy amounts of enjoyment! Sometimes I want to read a book that I'll think about for weeks, in which the reading experience will involve lots of uncomfortable moments. Other times, I want a book that just feels good. In the best possible sense, Clare's work reminds me of Charlaine Harris's. Theirs are the books you can retreat into when you need a story that won't play too rough with you.