Daughter of Smoke & Bone

by Laini Taylor

genre: fantasy, young adult, paranormal, romance

An urban fantasy story with a few twists up its sleeve. Find out why I gave it 4 out of 5 stars!

Summary

(Taken from Goodreads)

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 grows 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 beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery 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?

Review

This book inspired the post ‘When promising books go blegh‘, terrible drawing and all. So why on earth am I giving it a 4? I’ll tell you why.

The first third of the book was great. Then some crappy excuse for a romantic interest was forced into the equation. Literally, forced. I pushed myself through… I pushed… I tried to hold on. Others who had read it encouraged me that the book improved once Madrigal’s story started (and took over the deteriorating Karou one) and they were right. The last 100 pages had me so enthralled that when I finished, I was ready to buy the next book. I was ready to shove my money in the bookseller’s face. Take it! Take it! Continue reading →