Dear Aly,
I think I was in a reading slump! I’m finished with a lot of books, but every time I try to pick up a new one, I get so disinterested and end up putting it down and watching Netflix. Blegh.
Anyway, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor took me foreeeeever to read, like 90% longer than it should have, simply because I just wasn’t feeling read-y at all!
The book is about Karou, a seemingly ordinary girl; except that she has blue hair. And can draw and paint really well. And has a super-active imagination. Or so we think. She’s constantly drawing these Chimera-things and whenever she has a new set of drawings, there’s always a story to them. Well, they’re real. She lives with three Chimera in a magical shop that deals in teeth (? Right!). She’s often sent on crazy weird errands to pick up or go to auctions for rare animal teeth, but she has no idea why. One day, angels start burning random doors across the world, and then, the portal Karou uses to get to the shop also gets burned and she stuck in the human world. She’s got to figure a way back to her “family” and deal with an angel who keeps popping up everywhere.
This book is such a cliffhanger!!!! The pacing was kind of slow, in my opinion. There was a lot that happened, but I felt like all the scenes were really stretched out, even if they were minor plot points. This made it kind of difficult to get through at times. But but but since this is the beginning of a series, I feel like the next books are going to pick up speed (I hope).
The angels in the story aren’t the angels we think of. They’re called Seraphim but they’re not heavenly, God-related angels. They’re basically soldiers with wings; a separate and fantastical race. The Chimera are so cool, they’re your basic Chimera, comprised of different animals: so some have like the head of a bear, a human torso, and deer legs, or something to that effect. They’re all different but they get along as if they all looked the same, which is really cool!
The story focuses on Karou for the first half, but as her story unfolds and we meet the angel, Akiva, the focus shifts to Akiva, his upbringing and relationships, especially with his brothers and sisters and his love, Madrigal. Towards the end, Madrigal’s story takes center stage.
I didn’t think the story was spectacular but I did have a lot of fun reading it and getting into the fantastical world Laini Taylor created. I wasn’t sure, when I was about halfway through the book, whether I wanted to read the next ones in the series, but since it ends in such a cliffhanger, I feel like I neeeeeeed the next one in order to be satisfied!
Happy reading,
Zoe
FromAtoZBooks 