Hi ForeverBooker's, I'm sorry I haven't been writing reviews for what feels like ages. I've been busy with Christmas preparations. Anyway...
Wow, where do I start in this review? I thought the book was AMAZING!
Laini Taylor's writing is beautiful and really enraptures the reader into believing that this version of a mystical Prague exists. It's told in 3rd person, which I normally don't really like but in Daughter Of Smoke And Bone it really worked.
It tells the story of Karou, a girl who thinks she's just a normal human orphan, until she realises she can do things that other humans can't.
SPOILERS BELOW
Karou was adopted by a tooth founder, Brimstone and his small family of chimaeras (part human/part animal beings). She can't remember this adoption, however. She was used to going on tasks to collect teeth for Brimstone.
Teeth ultimate to wishes, in this world. This is a very unique idea from Laini Taylor as I've never seen this done before. Karou has her own necklace full of teeth, which she uses for petty, sporadic wishes. You see this at the very beginning of the book. There are of course different levels of wishes. Karou has the lowest level, which is why she can only wish for petty and sporadic things. Wishing ultimately saves her.
Karou gets sent on quests to retrieve these teeth. While in Marrakesh, she sees something beyond words for her, a seraphim. Seraphim and chimaera have been at war since way before Daughter Of Smoke And Bone begins. The seraphim here at first fights Karou as he doesn't know what else to do to a "human" collecting teeth for a chimaera. They quickly develop feelings for each other though, so if you DON'T like characters falling in love quickly this might not be for you. However, the story is SO much more than just the romance I found.
Karou wears a wishbone on a necklace around her neck. This wishbone becomes pretty central to the plot in the second half of the book, although we don't know quite why until the last chapter. Most of the last section of the book is told from a different time, with different characters involved. This threw me off to begin with, I'll be honest, but when we see why the story is being told that way, it really sucked me in. I'm not going to spoil what happens with the wishbone as this, I feel is pretty central to the whole story and its best left as a surprise.
Of course I'm going to give Daughter Of Smoke And Bone 5 stars! It's a brilliant imagining of a mystical Prague with amazing characters, wonderful, whimsical writing, a girl who makes lots of discoveries, and a romance. There are other things as well that this book draws upon that I feel is best left unmentioned for the surprise factor as there are lots of twists and turns. I cannot WAIT to see where Days Of Blood And Starlight takes me!
Have any of you read this? If so what did you think?
NOTE: I HAVEN'T read Days Of Blood And Starlight yet so please NO spoilers into book 2 or 3.
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