Daughter of Smoke and Bone- Laini Taylor

First off Happy Halloween!! I hope everyone is doing something fun tonight. I unfortunately have to work but the boyfriend and I decorated the outside and bought some candy so hopefully we get some trick or treaters.   

Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Format: Hardcover

Source: Borrowed from the library

Rating: 4/5

 

Goodreads Summary:

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 otherworldly 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 grow 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?

My review does not do this book justice but I am going to try my hardest to because this is a book that takes a used idea and twist it into this hauntingly beautiful story.

This book takes forbidden love and twists it and makes it into this amazing story.  The back of the book really describes the tone of the book “She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil’s lair. She wasn’t innocent now....”

I now understand what the cover is referring to. I thought it was just a pretty cover but after reading the book I see how it ties into the story.  I had a now I understand moment near the end of the book where the relevance of the mask is revealed.

 We meet Karou who is a student at n art school in Prague. She is a normal teenager with a best friend and an ex boyfriend who her best friend Zuzana has given a delightful nickname.  The thing that makes Karou stand out from the crowd is her blue hair which she tells her friends grows that color and her notebooks filled with sketches of otherworldly creatures that she claims are real. Karou is a strong female role which I always love in books, she can protect herself and is very independent.

Brimstone is one of my favourite characters in this book. He takes such good care of Karou.  He is a father to her in his own ruff way and makes sure she will always have enough to live off of.

Akiva is a Seraphim who battles against the Chimaera.  He feels this connection with Karou that he cannot explain and does not understand as she is of course his enemy.  

 I love the back story about his life and the myths about how the Seraphim and Chimaera came to be and why they have always been in conflict with each other.

I really enjoyed this book and cannot wait to read Taylor’s other books. I have never read a book set in Prague. It was unique and fast paced. The descriptions of the surroundings were amazing.  It made me feel like I was in the story watching it unfold.