Book Review: Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Release Date: January 1, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book for Young Readers

Source: Library

Summary

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

(Courtesy of Goodreads)

My Review

By the time I finished Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor I was hooked and excited for the third book. Unfortunately, it took me a while to get hooked as the first have was rather drawn out and lacked action. However, the action of the second half and the merging of the different story lines from the beginning of the book redeem the book as a whole.

The book started out kind of slow and for about the first half it was hard to get into. I think the biggest problem personally was all the different points of view from which the story is told. In the first half they seem very unrelated and of course they all get connected in the second half and it makes sense but it just made the story more difficult to get into. I also missed Karou's point of view in the beginning of the novel and it took me a while to get used to Akiva's voice, which is very different from Karou's. However, that makes the writing all the more strong when the author can make the different character's voices so distinct.

My favorite parts of the book where when Taylor would set up a situation and make you believe that a certain, expected, action had occurred and then a few pages or chapters later, would reveal how something completely different occurred. This element of Taylor's writing heightens the suspense in the novel, especially since once you realize this is happening you can never be quite sure if what your reading is actually happening or if it's something else entirely.

Overall, Days of Blood & Starlight suffered a bit from what is known as "second book syndrome" in the first half but the book was redeemed by the convergence of story lines and action of the second half. And of course the well-placed cliff-hanger at the end of the book gets me very excited for the third book released later this year.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars