Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Publisher: Little, Brown Book for Young Readers
Source: Library
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 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?
(Courtesy of Goodreads)
My Review
From the start, I was intrigued by Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor. The story is so different from the typical young adult books you see today. The story is told from multiple points of view that don't appear to connect at first but when they do, they converge seamlessly. It is not your typical love story, but so much more and by the end of the book you just want to pick up the next one.The way this story is told is what makes it stand out. As the story progresses you get hints of what happened in the past but it isn't until the very end that everything is revealed. We, the reader, learn, along with Karou, the main character, about how she came to be the person that she is and the mysteries surrounding her life. The way the story is set up and the suspense that is built throughout the first three-fourths of the book leads perfectly into the plot twist towards the end.
The romance in this books is so unlike the typical young adult romance. We don't even know about the romance between Karou and Akiva, and how deep it really is, until the end. I was worried at one point that it was going to be your typical "girl meets mysterious boy and they fall in love" kind of story but it is so much more than that. They have such a deep history that influences the actions of the story but isn't the focal point.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone exceeded my expectations of the paranormal romance it is marketed as. I normally don't like books in that genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed Daughter of Smoke & Bone. I would recommend it even if the genre isn't really your cup of tea. The story and characters stand out from the typical books in the paranormal romance genre.
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