Book Title/Author: Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
Publication Date/Publisher: September 27, 2011/Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Series: Yes, Daughter of Smoke & Bone #1
Source and Format: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4.75 stars
From Goodreads:
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?
Daughter of Smoke & Bone has been on my radar for a little while, but when reading the description I could never get past the part about black handprints appearing above doorways. I assumed this would be about the mystery of the handprints and finding the creatures who put them there.
“I don’t know many rules to live by,” he’d said. “But here’s one. It’s simple. Don’t put anything unnnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles – drug or tattoo – and…no inessential penises, either.”
WRONG. So wrong. Daughter of Smoke & Bone appealed to every part of me and has everything I love: magic, hidden worlds, girls with tattoos that are also weapons (okay this is a brand new thing I love). The magic behind the wishes and the thing with the teeth…it’s so good. I was captivated – all I wanted to do was read this book and fall into this wonderful world. And the writing is extraordinary – it’s definitely a talent if you can paint such a wonderful world and talk about inessential penises all in one book. I can’t even think of anymore words that mean OH MY GOD SO GOOD.
“A man once said, ‘All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.’ Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.”
I had a hard time picturing the chimaera at first, but they all sound so fantastic my imagination just had to get with the program. The idea behind their “(re)creation” is so unique and the ‘twist’ is not completely unexpected but handled beautifully. My only teensy gripe is the constant reminder of how beautiful Karou and Akiva are. I get that they need to be unnaturally gorgeous and all that, but it got a little excessive at times. That’s it – everything else was marvelous.
“Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.”
I had to temporarily lift my NO MORE BOOKS AT ALL rule to request Days of Blood & Starlight from the library. I don’t even care right now that I have to wait until April 2014 for Dreams of Gods & Monsters because I neeeeed to know what’s going to happen next.
