Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

The Blurb:

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?

The Review:

This book was a really good read. The minute I started it I was hooked and didn't put it down until I was finished. Once I was finished with it I realized I should have slowed down so it would've lasted longer.

All of the characters in this book are amazingly well written. They have depth and liveliness that I found really appealing. The main character in this story is Karou; she is a seemingly normal art student living in Prague. However she has a lot of secrets that she has to hide from her best friend Zuzana (who is awesome by the way.). She is working for a "monster" named Brimstone. I put the word monster in quotes because although frightening in appearance I actually really loved Brimstone, he is a chimera who raised Karou from a baby and has grown to care for her. Nonetheless he does have Karou work for him, it's her duty to go and collect teeth from traders. The traders turn in all kinds of teeth; human and animal. They trade these teeth in for wishes, the better the teeth, the bigger the wish. Karou doesn't know why Brimstone collect these teeth or what he does with them, she just knows he's starting to run low. Karou isn't allowed to have any big wishes of her own, but Brimstone does give her unlimited small wishes.

Karou herself is also a secret, she doesn't know how she came to be under Brimstones care, she doesn't know who her family is. All she knows is that Brimstone is the family she has now. It isn't until the angel Akiva sees her as she is collecting teeth that Karou seriously begins to question who and what she is. Akiva is a gorgeous angel hell-bent on revenge. The angels and the chimera have been at war for thousands of years and both sides have lost people that they loved. Karou gets caught in the middle when her and Akiva come face to face and there is a strong attraction between the two of them.

I really love this book, it had great world building, character development, and an amazing plot that keeps you guessing until the very end. I'm really looking forward to start the next book in this great series.

Rating: 5 stars

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