Author: Laini Taylor
Published: September 27th 2011 by Little, Brown Books
Book rating: 4 stars
Cover rating: 5 stars
Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
I've finally picked up my copy of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone to jump on the wagon with all of the readers I've seen rave about this book. I really liked Daughter of Smoke & Bone but I feel like it didn't really live up to all of the hype that surrounded it and was missing something, all the same I still liked it! It was a fun, easy read for me and it was nice to stray away from books that left me emotionally drained although the end was still a bit of a cliffhanger. The novel was well paced, at times felt maybe a little bit slow but not anything I couldn't handle. I liked how Taylor took the over used YA angel story and made it into something that was her own, it was truly unlike anything I've read of angels before and I appreciated that.
The story is told from Karou's point of view and eventually Akiva's too. Karou is the main character and has a very strange life that she doesn't even know about. Honestly I don't even want to go into what the heck her magical, creative world is about. I had NO CLUE what the heck this book was about before I read it and I loved it even more while reading it because of that. The characters were all well developed but I felt like I didn't really connect with any of them enough to get really emotionally invested into the story personally. I cared enough for them to want to know what happened and want to pick up the next book but not enough to read it all in one sitting or whine and complain to my mom when she reminded me I have other responsibilities that trump reading. There was just something missing and I can't even put a name to it. Maybe it's just me personally? I just didn't find it to be the best book ever, but it's definitely still worth a read because it was enjoyable. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Days of Blood & Starlight because I've heard it's even better than this one which gives me a lot of hope because the ending for Daughter of Smoke & Bone was completely unfair! Laini why in the world with your pink hair awesomeness would you end it right smack dab in the middle of the ending of something and beginning of an awesome adventure. I was so sad and mad and happy and bleh. I'm off to go beg my mom, my sister, and some random hobo to get me a copy of the second book now. While I do that you should give Daughter of Smoke & Bone a shot and then let me know what you think!
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Ooo. I really really really really really want to read it now..
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