Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Release Date: September 27^th, 2011

Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1

Number of Pages: 420

Publisher: Little Brown

Source: Bought

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?

Once again, I’ve been lucky enough to read an amazing book this week. Seriously. I was slightly scared when I first started reading it, simply because I had been waiting for this book for a while. Usually, when that happens, I have high expectations that aren’t usually met. Here, it my expectations were exceeded.

I must say that one of the most amazing parts of this book is seriously the world Laini Taylor has created. Everything is so well described. It was extremely easy for me to imagine everything she was describing. Yet, something that is normal with a book set in a world that well build is that the story was slightly slow at first. Still, before I had reached the middle of the book, I was hooked. I wanted to know what was going to happen, to Karou and Akiva.

Talking about them, I really liked them both. I liked that Karou wasn’t a simple character. She was complex and unique. I learn about who she really was almost at the same time as she did. Akiva was great, thought I didn’t fall head over heels for him. He was a great character, but won’t win best male character any time soon in my book.

I also like the way the relationship aspect was build; the love factor. It isn’t about easy love that happens the moment they met each other eyes. No, it’s more complex than that. They both see the other flaws, and they don’t forget everything “simply because they sooo love them.”

I was really captivated by this story. This is a book that was definitely hard to put down. An amazingly great beginning to a series I already can’t wait to get my hands on. It was a pleasure to read.