[Review] "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor

 

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Brown Books

 Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone  #1

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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 grows 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?

*Still searching for the right song on Youtube, I'm sorry guys!*

It’s been a while since I read this book, but I don’t feel like talking about The Young Elites again, so I decided to give you a short view on my thought about Daughter of Smoke and Bone. If I’m going to read the following books, I’ll be doing a series review.

Actually, I didn’t want to read this book. I’m, of course, it sounds great and the covers are really pretty, but I’m not a huge fan of angel/demon stories, so I refused to read this. But then Miss Bookiverse wrote a (German) Review for this entire series and I was really excited about those books now! So when the first book was on Kindle Sale, I bought it for like 2€ and read it right away.

I have to admit, even if I didn’t like this book as much as a lot of people did, I understand why people love this book.

Firstly, Laini Taylor writes like a god! Really, her style of writing is amazing! It felt like the words were capturing me, taking me away into anther land and another life. They created pictures inside my hand and made fell in love with words and letters over and over again. I wish I could rip out the pages and put those wonderful words on my wall to read them all day every day. Taylor reminds me that those letters aren’t black and white: They’re the most colorful and powerful things we have.

What I also really like were the Illustrious above the different parts of the book. They were often so short but made shiver. Also, the cover is nothing but gorgeous. I’m so sad that those cover aren’t available any long, and if they’re, they’re very expensive (like 20-30€ for one book! The new covers are like 10-15€, so it’s a big difference!) But they’re soooo beautiful! In reality they’re shiny and gorgeous and I love them!

Laini Taylor also has the ability to create not only great words, but to describe a stunning setting. I think it was a great idea to choose Prague as the setting for the book. Don’t know how you feel about it, but I want to visit Prague so badly! It’s ironic, because since my early childhood my family and I used to visit Czech a least ever second year, but we never visited Prague, which is a shame! I definitely going to persuade them to take me to Prague next time we go there ;) Back to the book: It felt like I actually was visiting Prague. I could almost feel the city, hear people talk and see the streets of Prague in front of me. That was very well done!

After the end of this book, it feels like the world Laini Taylor created, is eternal. I think if she would like to, the other books could be whatever she wanted them to be, she could find a plausible explanation. I’m really excited, what she will write in her next books!

Unfortunately, there were also some things that bother me. 

So stunning and amazing the setting and the style of writing were, the actual story wasn’t that great. I often felt like the story was pretty predictable. Sometimes there were really good approaches, but all in all it wasn’t what I expected. Maybe my expectations were too high, but this storyline was too weak to be great.

 I also had a big problem with the both main characters:

I couldn’t quite connect with Karou. She was too strange, and although I used to like strange and crazy characters, she was too distant and difficult to get for me. I also didn’t like Akiva. At the very beginning, he was great: He seemed like the villain and he had a lot of potential, but after the strong start he turned into a sissy very fast. They relationship was as bad: I didn’t feel it, it was more like a kinda insta-love thing. There was no slow approaching, there was no excitement. Way too fast there were the first kiss and the first time they said “I love you” to each other. I wasn’t even feeling the forbidden love thing anymore, because they didn’t seem like villains at all.

Nevertheless, there was a very promising conclusion at the end of the book, which again showed how much potential Laini Taylor has. So I’m definitely going to continue on with the series, at least to know what will happen after THIS ending, which literally destroyed me. 

So in the end, I think I'd give this book 3,5 at a 5 stars.