Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Hi there, guys!
Here's another review for you!
Are you all celebrating the Supreme Court Marriage Decision?
Because I sure as hell do!

BASICS

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bones, book #1
Author: Laini Taylor
Release Date: September 27th 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for  Young Readers
ISBN: 0316134023
Number of Pages: 418
Genre: Paranormal, Young Adult, Romance

SUMMARY

Karou's your ordinary girl.
Your ordinary girl with blue hair who gets languages as birthday gifts and collects teeth for her not so human foster father.
Well, maybe not so ordinary after all.
The thing is: She doesn't know who (or what) she is herself.
Since she can remember she was with Brimstone and Issa and all the other chimaeras who live a secret life in Brimstone's office with a door that leads to every city in the world.
Karou never searched actively for information concerning her past until she meets the angel Akiva.
Beautiful, tortured Akiva who tries to kill her in the streets of Marrakesh.
The two are drawn to each other and Karou starts to unravel who she really is.
But the question in the end is: Does she really want to know?

MY OPINION

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well.

This is just one example for one of many pre-chapter pages. I adored them.
I hope they kept them in the other two books.

First, let me tell you: Laini Taylor can write like hell.
She managed to build a magical and mysterious world that sucked me in.
Taylor tells us about a parallel world in which angels and chimaeras are tangled in an endless war lasting for a thousand years. She tells us about two star-crossed lovers.
Just like Shakespeare has already written centuries ago:

The course of true love never did run smooth.

And the course of their love definitely has some twists.
While all this sounds quite "cliché", Laini Taylor manages to give the typical YA themes a new twist.
The angel Akiva is no eternal warrior, he's quite young in the angel sense (comparing him to other Angel Boys)! And the angels' leader is not God or some messenger angel, it's a douchy emperor. He makes Ismail Ibn Sharif seem like the father of a small family.
Other various 'recycled' themes: star-crossed lovers, Instalove, Mary Sue.

The Mary Sue cliché
At the beginning it really seems like that. God, lemme tell you how pissed of I was.
All my trusted reviewers on GoodReads tell me how awesome this book is and then it's about a Mary Sue.
Karou has blue hair, looks beautiful and mysterious, can draw like hell, speaks dozen of languages and always knows the best comebacks.
It takes a few chapters to understand where all that comes from, what's behind it and to understand that Karou's appearance is not Karou's inner self.
She's lonely and feels like something's missing. She has flaws.
Just as Karou's friends (and Karou herself), you never really know who Karou is and the development to fully understand her comes only slowly. We're on that path with Karou together.


That'll be a minor spoiler but I just have to tell you: I'm so glad that that 'missing part' is not Akiva. Even though we - and Karou - are supposed believe that for a while. Thank you, Laini, thank you.

The only cliché Taylor didn't manage to improve was Akiva. (Just my opinion)
While I was really intrigued by Karou, I felt no emotion at all towards Akiva.
He wasn't created in a manner that made him distinct from other love interests in the genre.
He's an angel, beautiful, with a twisted past, deeply in love, a skilled warrior.
There are other angel boys out there.


Apart from maybe Akiva Taylor writes very good characterizations! Even side-characters such as Zuzana and her boyfriend have a completely developed personality. They are not only there to make the main characters look better.

After finishing the book, I was torn between excitement for the next one but also some kind of disconent.
After getting to know Karou for a whole book and going her path with her, we just have to leave her behind? Some will probably say, she's still Karou. Kind of.
But that's not how I see it.
I'll miss her.
At the same time however, I'm really curious how Taylor continues Karou's change in the next books.

RATING

4 out of 5 stars