Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Review: Daughter of Smoke & Bone - Laini Taylor

Where I got it: ARC from AmazonVine
Rating: 4.5 stars  
Cover Rating: 3.5 stars (Not in love with it, but I like it well enough. I wish you could see her other eye better.)  
Genre:Young Adult
Publication Date: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Page Count: 420 p.
Buy it: Book Depository / Amazon

Karou isn't sure who she is, or where she came from. She knows that her secret life, behind Brimstone's doors, isn't like everyone else's life. No one else can make small wishes from the beads on her necklace. No one else converses with chimaera, part beast and part human, let alone runs errands for them and considers them family. Karou is going to art school and Prague, and it is lovely. Lovely, except for her ex-boyfriend constantly popping up to harass her. He is lovely, but a real pain. No one knows about Karou's private life, not even her best friend. Karou tells them things, but with a smile that never let's you think she could be telling the truth. When handprints start showing up scorched into the doors to Brimstones place, Karou thinks of it fleetingly. There is too much going on inside Brimstone's and in her own world to worry too much about something so small. Things start happening too fast, and Karou is left without answers and with a big task at hand. She's also falling in love, against her better judgement, with someone who tried to kill her. If she can't figure out a way to get answers soon, it might be too late.

Another lovely-written story by Laini Taylor. I fell in love with the setting and the whimsy of it all. Karou might not have the safest, most normal life, but she is loved. Some of the revelations in this book took me by surprise, I'm glad they were that way though, instead of the conclusions I had come to. It strikes me odd that Karou never thinks that they could be a whole world of chimaera though. I mean, she grew up with them but never imagines that there might be more of them? It just seems a bit odd. I really enjoyed this novel and cannot wait for the next installment. It was a really interesting take on a lot of different lore. Zuzana, Karou's best friend, was great. She was a fantastic best friend and funny. I loved the banter between the two of them. Kaz was extraordinarily self-obsessed which made him easy to fall for but also easy to detest. The characters in the novel really just came to life, so all their action made a kind of sense. As we have come to expect, this novel was beautifully written, the prose sucks you in. The first page painted such a picture, that I was already in love with this foreign country I had never seen. I am completely looking forward to the next book, and wish I didn't have to wait another second. I was sort of disappointed by the ending, I wanted more of Karou's point of view, I know why we had to see this, but I wish it was more brief, so the story progressed a bit further. It ended in the perfect spot though, so I guess it was okay ;)

First Line:
"Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day."


Favorite Lines:
"The falling snow and the early hour conspired to paint Prague ghostly, like a tintype photograph, all silver and haze."


"And it would begin with fire."


"The living tide sucked them into the agora, a backwash of elbows and wings, horns and hides, fur and flesh, and she was carried along, stricken dumb with disbelief, he hooves scarcely skimming the cobble."

3 comments:

  1. I LOVED this book! Like really, really, really loved it. I had never read anything by Laini Taylor before, but if her writing is as incredible in her other books as it is in this one, then I must read everything by her.

    I completely agree with you about the stuff towards the end though. I felt like it pulled me out of the story too much and I wanted more Karou, but, in the end, I think it works and makes sense. I know I NEED more though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This one looks so fabulous. I need to read it soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I did enjoy reading this book, although there were parts where I almost put it down. It isn't my style, but it will keep the reader's attention throughout.

    Maycee Greene (Anchorage Web Design)

    ReplyDelete

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