Laini Taylor
418 Pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: January 1, 2011
RATING: 5 STARS
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?
At the beginning of the book, I was having an incredibly hard time. So many of the character's names started with the letter 'Z' that I was getting them all mixed up and confused. The more I read though, I was able to learn more about each person, which made it easier to tell them apart. I ended up falling in love with each and ever character. I was able to see all of them develop emotionally, and they were crafted with amazing individuality and had such great personalities. Taylor's descriptiveness made it to where I could clearly form images in my mind of how the characters looked. All I can say is, please let me have blue hair like Karou.
Taylor took a classic good versus evil, forbidden love, fantasy story and put such fantastic twists in it. Just when I would start to get comfortable with the story, BAM, she threw in another surprise. The feelings of shock and disbelief I would feel when there was a huge twist in the story was majorly apparent in my face and in the way I would gasp. People would ask if I was okay, only to have me grunt back at them and continue reading. I would not put up with any interruptions while in the process of reading this book. This novel is the absolute perfect example of what a page-turner is. It won't matter if you need to go to sleep because you have to be up for work in six hours, you will not want to put this book down.
In short, if you have not read DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE, then what are you waiting for? Seriously, READ IT NOW!