The Messenger Reviews

If you wanted The Mortal Instruments set in the Victorian Age, then this is the book for you! I would call it the new Mortal Instruments, but it's basically the same story repackaged in a different time period with different names and places. Basically, it's the same book set in a different era, so if you always wanted City of Bones to be set in the Victorian Age, well then do I have a book for you.
As you can tell, my major complaint about this book is that it's basically the same as City of Bones. You'd think, seeing as the books are set in different time periods, that you'd get a drastically different story, but really it was the same. You had the same cast of characters- Courageous, confused, not-normal-like-she-thought-she-was Tessa, witty, arrogant, damaged Will, his best friend Jem, and the pissy, misunderstood, but still lethal Jessamine who thinks about guys a lot, though in an admittedly different way. They all form "one big family". I felt like the plot, while different in some aspects, was mostly the same. Will saves Tessa, she learns that she isn't a normal person like she thought she was, has an on-again-off-again relationship with Will, who pushes her away. Each character had their own quirks about them, so they weren't exactly the same, but they were too similar for my liking. I found the ending very similar too, but won't talk about that right now for spoiler's sakes.
Other than that though, I didn't really have any other major problems with this book. It dragged in some places, but it was interesting in others. I liked the role that Jem played in the book, though I found Will more annoying than I did Jace, though I've been assured that I will come to like Will more as certain things that are unbeknownst to me at the moment come to light. I guess I'll just have to keep reading to find out. 
All in all, it was a fair book, but it was just too similar to it's "sister series" of sorts for me to really enjoy. I feel like if I had read it before I had read The Mortal Instrument Series I would have liked the plot itself a little better, but wouldn't have enjoyed the smaller parts of the book in which references were made to the other series, which were really the best part of the book for me. 
Three Point Five out of Five Stars