Actual rating: 3.5⭐

This is a short story prequel of the movie classic 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Unfortunately I haven't seen that movie yet. I chose to read this book because I was interested on the synopsis of this book.

This book is about Clarence, a guardian angel in training. That's the keyword for me: guardian angel in training. I'm quite sure I haven't read a book with this theme before. And this one is short so it will be a fast read.

This is about Clarence, a clockmaker, after he chose to be a guardian angel in training after dying. I expected a lot from the world building but it kinda fell flat for me.

The training was very simple and it wasn't elaborated that much. The focus is more on Clarence's clockmaking job and his personal life.

It was a fast read.👍

***Thanks to Lost Armada Productions and R.A. Cabral for making this book available for review via Netgalley.***

A-S2: A Clockmaker’s Journey is the story of Clarence Odbody, the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), between his time of death and until he becomes the guardian angel of George Bailey.

This book was read as part of a Harry Potter-themed readathon, chosen for the prompt “Star on the cover/in title”, lasting August 2020.

I can not say that I am a big fan of It’s a Wonderful life. I’ve seen the movie once a couple of years ago, but I remember that it had a strong impact on me, that I finally understood why people cried to it, and that it had a strong message. However, I went into this book, hoping to find a feel good story about a recently dead clockmaker, and his attempts at getting his wings. I was hoping it would be a short and sweet story, with some laughs, some smiles and a good message in the end.

Boy, was I wrong.

I won’t go too deep into the story or plot. If I did, I feel like I would spoil the entire story. I think my biggest gripes with it is that it involves a lot of “tell, don’t show”. Even though I don’t read that many novellas, it felt like this one was unusually shallow in its writing. We never got to experience what Clarence experienced, instead we were told what he experienced. We never saw what he saw, we were told what he saw. We never- Ok, you know where I’m going with this. On top of that, none of the characters were interesting, the story felt mostly like Clarence was just along for the ride, and all in all, I never really felt emerged in the story.

With that said, it’s not necessarily a bad story. It doesn’t do anyone any harm, and there isn’t anything in it that I would say is directly offensive. It’s a simple and short read. There were some moments in the beginning when I was genuinely interested in where the story was going.

However, in the end, I honestly can’t think of anyone to recommend it to. I went in, not hoping for too much, but it still disappointed me. It did not supply me with a short, feel good story. Instead, it just gave me a feeling of “meh”.