Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor

I'm submitting this book to the 2011 Debut Author Challenge, hosted by The Story Siren.

Description

Review: This book kind of hijacked my weekend, and I loved every minute of it! Laini Taylor had me enraptured with her writing and I suddenly developed an urge to read anything she's written (which isn't much, as of now). Besides, the story was great and I kept turning the pages, eager to find out what was going to happen next.

Karou is a girl with two lives. One where she is an art student in Prague, with a best friend and boy trouble. Another where she was created by a strange being, Brimstone, a chimaera - a being created of many animal parts. Karou doesn't know who she is, who were her parents, or why she sometimes fells so incomplete. She is, however, an errand girl for Brimstone, buying teeth all over the world for him. For what, she doesn't know. But then Brimstone's portals are marked all over the world, and soon Karou finds herself alone, trying to figure out the mystery of herself.

This book starts in a way, and one would never guess, in a million years, how it ended. It was such a wonderful and unexpected ride to follow Karou and to understand who she was, and what exactly had happened in the past. She and Akiva (the male MC) have many more things in common that I would have thought at first and I was heartbroken at their story.

Karou is an interesting character, but one I'd like to further meet, as she had to, say, divide the stage with someone on this book. Akiva, however, ends up much more fleshed out as a character, and we get to see what makes him who he is and why he made some choices.

The story was so captivating that I devoured the book in a day. Laini Taylor wrote in a way that you can't help but wonder what's really going on, and her writing is wonderful. The world created is amazing, and the way she spun some overused mythology (angelic and demonic), creating some mythology of her own, is just plain awesome.

The supporting characters are so captivating as well. Zuzana, for instance, is Karou's best friend and, albeit small, is quite the bulldozer, personality-wise. And she is so, so, funny. I loved her reaction when first meeting Akiva. And her remarks throughout her conversation with him, where Karou had to play translator between them.

Brimstone is another character I grew fond of. He was a bit of a mystery to me in the first three quarters of the book, but as I read the last quarter, and realized what he did for a living, and what he did for Karou, I just adored him. I hope I get to see more of him.

The ending was distressful and sad for me. Laini Taylor, you tell me this tragic, tragic story, and then you leave me hanging like that? I've finished reading this book at 3 A.M. this morning, and I'm already missing it. Oh dear, I'm really curious as to where this will go next, but I have to wait a whole YEAR? Besides that tiny detail, I would really, really recommend this. It's like a bright comet crossing the dark night sky - it doesn't show up very often, but it's gorgeous and different.

Pages: 432

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton UK