Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Yes Book 1
Pages: 418
Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Rating: 2.5 out of 5


Summary: 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 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?

Feelings: 
This book was recommended by a friend who went to the science fiction and fantasy convention this year. She said that everyone was talking about the book and maybe I should check it out. I had seen the book a couple times and thought about reading it but hadn't. I'm glad that it was brought back to my attention. I would like to also say that while this was a page turner for me I am left feeling unsatisfied at the end of the book and it isn't because this is a series. I don't think I will be reading the rest of the series. I know this may upset some people as they seem to love this book. However, I just didn't.

Karou is seventeen and she has blue hair. At the beginning of the story she is getting over a breakup and betrayal. Her world is divided between the chimaera her family and the human world of which she is one. The division between the worlds leaves her with few people she connects with and only for chimaera that she considers her family. Brimstone uses her as an errand girl in the human world. Karou is curious about how Brimstone uses the teeth she collects but her questions do not give her answers but evasion.

This story is well crafted and I enjoyed reading it. I should note that over all I would have been happy with the ending if not for the:

...to be continued (p. 418)

at the very end of the last chapter. I don't think that is a spoiler more a warning. This is a young adult novel but I felt that it was more mature than most of the fiction for young adults I read. Sometimes I wonder what the boarder for young adult and adult fiction is. I think that fantasy may fall into young adult more than other categories of fiction.

Having finished this book a while ago now I keep thinking back about why I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would after I finished it. I thought it was very well written, beautiful sentences and so on but I found myself feeling like it wasn't quiet right. After I finished the book I read a few other books and I know the writing wasn't as good as this one but I enjoyed them more than this. I have a hard time placing what exactly caused this feeling but I think it might have to do with the very very long flash back at the end of the book. I did not like the choice of having it all in one place like that and I think that it detracted from the story in some ways. I liked what was in the flash back by itself but I didn't care for how it fit in with everything else. Basically I found this a book I didn't want to put down when I was reading but one that didn't have that much appeal for me afterwards. Even though I felt like the story was well done because I didn't feel satisfied by the book I'm rating it 2.5 which I'm feeling is a bit generous. It's because of the beautiful sentences.

I would recommend this book to those that love fantasy and imagination with a note that it is a book many people love but not everyone is going to, I didn't love it.

*****SPOILERS BELOW*****

I think were the book really fell apart for me and stopped being interesting was when we get Akiva suddenly not trying to kill Karou anymore and finding that he actually loves her. I also found that Karou feeling the same way bothered me. With the world she is familiar with now closed to her Akiva is her only connection to it. The last thing she has left from her father figure, is the wishbone he always wore around his neck. Akiva remembers what this wishbone and together they break it and suddenly Karou has all these memories. Begin flashbacks. This is where the book just fell apart for me. It seemed like a cop-out to me that his is how Karou finds out who she is. Besides I really just didn't like the war between the demons and the angels. Seemed a bit contrite to me. I wonder if there was a  way that we could have been introduced to the conflict without me feeling that way and I think maybe there was. I just didn't like the really long flashback at the end. This is why I did not end up caring about the book in the end even though it was visually very appealing and it was at times a page turner for me.