The Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

Reading Level: Ages 15 and up
Hardcover: 432 pages
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal

Book One: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Book Two: Days of Blood and Starlight (11/6/12)

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Amazon 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 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?

My Review:

I......am flabbergasted. Love that word! Doesn't it just make you want to laugh? Anyways, back to the subject in hand. The Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a stunning and riveting novel with a intricate and distinctive theme. I've put off reading this book for a while now, because the title made absolutely no sense to me and the summary kind of creeped me out. But after reading this novel, I totally got it! The title the author used tied the whole story together and I loved it!

Unlike the last few novels I've stumbled across, The Daughter of Smoke and Bone has a protagonist who is both badass physically and mentally. Instead of being a damsel in distress and forgiving her ex-boyfriend for doing the unforgivable, she stayed strong and got revenge! What she used as her revenge was hilarious (you'll see what I mean when you read the book xD)! Zuzana, the protagonist's best friend, was amusing as well and I laughed out loud at some of her witty remarks, which was both good and bad, because I was reading this in public and some people looked at me like I was a nut job.

The love interest, Akiva was swoon worthy as well!

"What people saw was a tall young man, beautiful-truly, breathstealingly beautiful, in a way one rarely beholds in real life- who moved among them with predatory grace, seeming no more mindful of them than if they were statuary in a garden of gods."

annnnd

"His dark hair was cropped close to his skull, with a hairline that dipped into a widow's peak. His golden skin was bronzed darker across the planes of his face- high ridges of cheekbones, brow, bridge of the nose- as if he lived his life in drenching rich honey light."

*Gasps* The one thing I had trouble believing was how they fell in love with each other and trusted each other so soon. I mean if some guy comes up to me and tries to kill me, then comes the next day and says he means me no harm, I would be a little bit more skeptical and cautious then she was. It kind of made sense in the end but I was still a little iffy on it.

Overall, this book had a unique and a never before seen storyline. The world building in this novel was very hard to do but Laini managed to do it perfectly! The Daughter of Smoke and Bone was also perfectly paced, so that when I was just about to get bored, something new and exciting came up. I will be eagerly anticipating the sequel, The Days of Blood and Starlight, coming out November 6, 2012!

Heroine- 5/5
Romance- 4.5/5
Action- 4.5/5
Comedy-5/5
Overall- 4.5/5

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