Customer Reviews

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

5 star:		(221)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(30)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I would like to start off this review by saying that I really didn't want to read this book. The people who decided on the back of the book description did a crappy job explaining this story in an interesting way. Now that I have read it, the back looks good, but from a fresh perspective, it fell flat. If it weren't a Vine book, given to me for free, I would have never picked it out among the thousands of books out there. I am so glad I gave it a try.

This complex story is about a girl who has no idea of who she really is. Her life has been filled with creatures that would cause terror to most but have been family to her. Karou is a strong, talented seventeen year old who helps her "family" of demon like characters collect teeth. The teeth have a use, but Karou has never found out what exactly. She just goes to designated sights through portal doors to collect the teeth and then goes back to her private art school and her one friend. Her lonely life is interrupted by the sight of an angel who is trying to put a stop to the teeth trade and the creatures who traffic them. Even though he should destroy Karou ,he can not bring himself to kill her due to her similarities to his long lost love. What follows is an intriguing tale of forbidden love in a lush, imaginative world.

I know, I know, collecting teeth sounds so...weird. I promise that the author pulls this off and then some. I struggled with what to say without giving too much away, but I wanted to tell more than the back cover. Karou is an interesting heroine who is beautiful, exotic, and real all at the same time. The world building is really the star of this novel. Everything is different than anything I have read. Yes, it has angels in it, but the author still makes everything fresh.

On a different note, I would not recommend this book to younger teens. Not only is it a little more complex, there is sex and sexual situations. I would say sixteen and up as an absolute minimum in age requirement. As an adult, this is one of those YA books that transfers just fine.

Overall, I really liked this book, and I will be looking for the sequel to help ease the cliffhanger ending.

Karou is a 17-year old art student. She lives in Prague, paints and goes to school. She is trying to get over her good-for-nothing ex-boyfriend. But there is an air of mystery about Karou. She knows magic. She has a secret life. Karou is an orphan who was raised lovingly by a foursome of demonic creatures. She occasionally runs strange errands for them; and on one of the trips she is confronted by an angelic-looking Akiva who attempts to kill her.

What happens next is best described by the book's own first lines:

Once upon a time,
an angel and a devil fell in love.

It did not end well.

There is nothing cliche about this story, trust me. Laini Taylor is a writer with talent and extraordinary imagination. What I loved the most about "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" was the world behind it. We all have read our measure of angel books and you will probably agree with me that the portrayal of angels in them rarely goes beyond wings, sexiness and some dark secret behind the "fall." But what if angels and demons are not what is traditionally/biblically accepted? What if you could get into the midst of their world, learn about their cultures, gain knowledge about their centuries-long war? What if the love between an angel and demon is forbidden and a taboo (maybe even by human standards)? Would you like to read about that? I bet you would.

"Lips Touch: Three Times" is one of my most favorite books ever. If you liked those stories, I doubt "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" will disappoint you. This novel is equally dark, sensual, unsettling and a little twisted. The imagery is stunning. The language is beautiful, every word matters (there were a couple of slips into overwritten, I must say, but only a couple). And the love... well, it pushes boundaries, it transcends time and space.

Too bad the cover doesn't do this fantastic book justice...

Fiery handprints, mythical beasts, magical tattoos, wishes and teeth -- all these things have a major part to play in Laini Taylor's otherworldly, bittersweet "Daughter of Smoke and Bone." Her third full-length novel reads like a punky collaboration between Holly Black and Charles De Lint, sprinkling mysterious items and haunted characters across the world.

Blue-haired, tattooed art student Karou studying in Prague. But as if that didn't make her odd enough, she was raised by a pair of monstrous "chimeras" named Issa and Brimstone, who run a shop that buys teeth. And Karou is regularly sent (via magic portal) to various parts of the world to retrieve various kinds of teeth, from elephant tusks to human children's baby teeth.

But then winged strangers appear across the world, leaving scorched handprints on every doorway to Brimstone's shop -- and causing destruction for the chimeras. Soon Karou finds herself adrift in the world, being stalked by the mysterious Akiva -- but when she fights back, she learns of an ancient war that is still going on to this day.

While the book talks about "angels" and "demons," Laini Taylor really doesn't base her book on any kind of Judeo-Christian beliefs. She came up with her own fantastical mythology for this book -- we have beast-human chimeras, winged seraphim from some kind of celestial empire, beads made of wishes, and a girl whose origins are a mystery even to her.

And her prose is absolutely luscious, filled with sensual gestures and vivid imagery. Fire, feathers, eerie old buildings and otherworldly creatures, all of whom are dangerous and sad. Her descriptions of Prague alone (a city of puppets, alchemists and beautiful heartbreakers) are enough to sway you in, and while the first part of the book is shrouded in mystery, Taylor unfurls a velvety tapestry of bloody history as well.

The only problem is that the story ends way too abruptly -- the last chapter left me thinking, "Huh? What? That's where it ends? What NOW? WHAT?"

And she created a very unique pair of protagonists in Akiva and Karou. These are the anti-Bella Swan and anti-Edward Cullen -- she's a fierce, mysterious girl with loads of inner strength, while he is a lonely, powerful figure haunted by lost love. Issi and Brimstone are also fascinating characters, and it's a shame we do not see more of them.

"Daughter of Smoke and Bone" is a lush, tragic urban fantasy that crafts its own mythos, and has a solidly interesting heroine as well. Definitely a must-read for those tired of bad teen-girl/vampire romances.

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE has been collecting rave reviews by the bushel, and until about halfway through the book I was ready to join the chorus. The writing really is amazing, not just because it's heightened and lovely but because Taylor manages to mix her gorgeous prose with some of the most natural, charming teen dialogue that I've read in a long time. Karou's banter with her best friend Zuzana is an absolute joy to read, witty and carefree, smart and silly.

And the world is fascinating. Taylor drops us into it bit by bit: Karou's life as an art student in Prague, the strange errands she runs for the wishmonger Brimstone in his shop whose door can open in Paris one minute and Marrakech the next, the teeth she gathers on his behalf and the questions he won't answer about who she is and how she, a human girl, came to belong to his family of monsters.

Things started to go wrong - and I'm sorry to say it - when Akiva the angel arrives on the scene. Akiva is traveling the world on behalf of his Emperor, preparing to seal all the doors that pass between the human world and Brimstone's shop. He encounters Karou along the way, realizes that she's running errands for Brimstone, and tries to kill her. But before Akiva can deliver the fatal blow he notices a strange similarity between Karou and his long lost love, Madrigal.

That sparks a strange, fairy-tale romance between Akiva and Karou. They recognize one another as enemies yet are drawn together by a deep sense of connection. While Akiva and Karou grow closer, a point of no return approaches: the angels hate Brimstone and his kind, just as Brimstone loathes the angels. Akiva and Karou's love for one another sets them at odds with their people.

It's at that point, when the tension is highest, that Taylor abandons the story of Akiva and Karou to tell us the story of Akiva and Madrigal. Calling this a flashback would be inadequate; it's more like Taylor inserts a novella into the middle of her novel. I was pretty impatient to find out what would happen in the present and I never really settled into the new story. Taylor foreshadows the revelations to be found in the Akiva/Madrigal romance pretty heavily, so the flashback didn't contain many surprises, and almost as soon as Taylor finally, finally jumps back to the present, she ends the novel on a cliffhanger.

The flashback kind of ruined the whole novel for me. Instead of giving us a whole story, Taylor gives us half of one, plumps it out with backstory, and calls it a day. I'm not the kind of reader who gets mad about cliffhangers on principle, and I'm usually more excited than otherwise when there are big open-ended problems to solve over the course of a series rather than a single novel. But DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE left me deeply unsatisfied and more than a little grumpy.

This is a Gothic urban fantasy, dark and stunningly written. Laini Taylor weaves words together beautifully and she crafts narratives so that you are completely pulled into her world, hopelessly captivated. You simply devour her words. She is gifted and has given us ample proof that stories labeled as Young Adult can easily appeal to adults. Due to very mature themes, this story is not for children and I would recommend that only teens 16 and older read it.

This is a story about a girl named Karou living two vastly different lives in two vastly different worlds. The joy of this story is discovering Karou and her role in the other-world known simply as "Elsewhere." I was mesmerized by Elsewhere and the fascinating descriptions of its inhabitants and I was completely smitten with the black market concept of trading teeth in exchange for wishes of varying degrees of potency. The teeth are a source of great intrigue and the author does not disappoint when their purpose is revealed. That's where the real story begins. Overall, I was satisfied with her characterizations, though I think the male protagonist, Akiva, needs further development. Since the author utilized a dual perspective, she could have easily developed Akiva more fully. But she didn't and I'm really not sure why. That is the power of that perspective. However, she does a fantastic job bringing secondary characters to life. I was also very pleased with the complexity of motivations. The opposing forces are not solely good or evil, but a fine shade of gray, multifaceted. The premise is imaginative and the possibilities are endless.

But then a superficial romance is thrown into the mix, confusing my impression of this seemingly carefully crafted tale. Don't get me wrong, I love a good romance, but this one - putting it kindly - falls flat. In fact, it felt careless, something I wouldn't have expected of this author who seems so deliberate. Simply put, this was yet another example of lust equated with love, a misguided element for fiction aimed at young adults. Though the quick attachment between Karou and Akiva is explained, the prerequisite still falls short and does the disservice of disconnecting the reader from the protagonist. The plot twist introduced (the aforementioned prerequisite) made it difficult to relate to Karou from that point forward. I felt like I didn't know her anymore. Needless to say, sexual attractiveness does not necessitate love and this is where the romance (which takes up a good portion of the latter half of the book) sidelined me. I needed more to buy it.

It is overall a good story and I hope the sequel will focus on the conflict between the opposing forces, which is the most compelling part of the plot. 3-3.5 stars

I really wanted to love this book. The cover is awesome, the blurb doesn't mention it, but the story takes place in Prague and Karou is an art student. And I wanted to find out what was up with the teeth.

Disliked. this. book. The writing fell flat for me. Karou and her friend have the most ridiculous conversations, the central romance felt contrived and forced and the story wasn't interesting. It's only until the end of the book do you learn why Karou and the angel feel so attracted to each other, why there's a huge war between Angels and Chimera, who Karou's family is....In fact, I really liked the end of the book! It was like the start of a completely different book -- one I actually wanted to read. It revealed so much about the characters. I wish the author would have weaved the ending in to the body of the book instead of throwing all these great details in at the end.

Attention Authors: Throwing in all the good stuff at the end makes me want to throw your book across the room, not pick up the second book because you're great at a "cliffhanger" ending.

Pow. Pow. Pow. That's me shooting holes in this book in frustration and disappointment. There is nothing worse than an entertaining, well-written, interesting story that goes SPLAT half-way through.

And that's what happened here. The first 50% is wonderful. It's the tale of Karou - a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague who moonlights traveling the world though magic portals to collect teeth (human/animal/reptile/etc.). Karou and her friends (in Prague and inside the magic portals) are unique and fun. I really liked her and them. I loved the central mystery of the story - who is Karou (she doesn't know herself) and what happens to the teeth after she collects them (she doesn't know this either).

Add to that an arch-enemy who is marking all the magic portals for unknown reasons and trying to kill her. She comes up with a plan (an interesting, scary, fun plan) that I assumed was going to drive the rest of the plot.

That's the first 50%. Like I said, it's great. 4.5 stars great (I was evening thinking I might round up to 5 stars). And it's well written. The author has a great way with words. Her metaphors are beautiful and more than once I stopped to reread something because it was just so well said (How often do I say that about a novel? Almost never!)

SPLAT

Second half of the book. Spoiler Alert: I won't talk about plot details, but I am going to discuss the story structure.

The immediate action completely stops. The second half of the book is backstory as Karou and her new-found love interest discuss (shown in lots and lots and lots and lots of flashbacks) the answers to the story questions and kiss each other. Occasionally they change locations and there's one battle, but that's maybe 5% of the pages. Really... It's all backstory (and backstory and backstory and backstory - 200 some odd pages of it) and lovey-dovey moments and more lovey-dovey moments.

(The problem with backstory is that I already know the outcome. Thus the backstory is all immensely boring with no tension or suspense. I would have preferred it all to have been summed up in ONE flashback so that the plot could move forward in the present time.)

It was awful (but still well-written awful). I never liked her love interest. His personality never seemed to mesh with his history and their `romance' was based more on magic than any real connection between them (or at least I never felt it). I was also annoyed that EVERY single character was stunningly beautiful (well almost, there were a few old people and a few envious young people). Karou and her love interest became Mary Sues of the worst kind - too, too perfect in every aspect of themselves, including their lack of awareness of their own beauty.

Still, I held on thinking that eventually we'd get back to Karou's plan and the more interesting stuff. At the 80% mark, I was down to 3.5 stars but still hopeful of a good ending.

There was no good ending. The flashbacks and kissing continued until I turned the page and the next chapter said, `Epilogue.'

What?????

No black moment. No climax. No fulfillment of the promises (aka the plan) made earlier in the book. And the last line of the entire tale? (This would be where I went hunting for bullets) `To Be Continued...'

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for series (I LOVE series!). But each book needs to have a complete story of its own - A Three-Act Play (stealing the format for movies) of its own. This book does not. If anything it feels like set-up for a story that's going to take place in books down the road (books I will not bother to read, thank you very much).

One more thing... There are places in the book (and not the entire thing, just certain chapters, it seemed) where the author goes hog-wild with colons: She overuses them. There are paragraphs that have three, four colons: It's distracting, annoying, and pretentious. What makes it even worse is that the author isn't even using this form of punctuation correctly. How this ever made it past an editor, I have no idea.

Karou is a young art student living in Prague who has a couple of shocking secrets. She was raised by demons, and collects teeth for them in return for wishes that she uses on things such as the ability to turn her hair blue, learn new languages, even inflict uncomfortable itching on people whenever she so desires. However, Karou often wonders about herself. Who is she? Why does she collect the teeth and what are they used for? Who is the mysterious "angel" that she finds herself so drawn to? After the boy with fiery wings named Akiva shows up in her life, things take a surprising turn and Karou discovers who she really is, but can she save her dying race and the family who raised her?

Seriously, I don't understand how this book got such high ratings from everyone. This book is a load of fluff compared to the author's Faerie's of Dreamdark series... And even the negative reviews said even though it was boring, it was well-written... NO. In my opinion, the language was frivolous and child-like, and reminded me of the stories I used to write back in 8th grade. I felt oddly embarrassed for the author while reading this because it was so unbelievable and over-embellished. And YES I said "unbelievable." Yeah it's a fiction novel, but seriously? EVERY single prominent character had literally NO flaws. Karou was perfect in every way. She had it all! She was beautiful, talented, smart, strong, and got virtually everything she wanted. Oops I'm sorry, not EVERYTHING: she couldn't get her desperate wish to fly... Oh wait! She DID get that! And more! Even her human companions were perfect such as Zuzana, the gorgeous ballerina (or whatever, even though nothing was mentioned of her apparent dancing and acting skills until Karou buys her a friggin' bank-breaking costume worn by Anna Pavlova that just HAPPENED to be on sale at some local kiosk... Oh and then she uses it in her random marionette act which went on for like 10 pages, what was THAT all about???) To add to the list who can forget Kaz, her Greek god-like ex-boyfriend, and Mik, the stunningly handsome violinist?

Also the whole thing that wishes are made from pain? A lot of that doesn't quite add up... People can die without going through the whole pain process... And their teeth can be easily removed without them feeling a thing. Also they could (although they would probably be questioned for it...) go to a dentist and have their teeth pulled under anesthesia, I'm just saying. I feel like the plot could have easily been turned into something interesting, but instead random junk was thrown in to explain all the mystery without actually having to think things through a bit. It's kinda like the series Lost: It started out promising, until the writers obviously started making things up as they went. The chimaera and seraphim idea was really unique and could have been molded into something great, but with the teeth and the wishes and the boring, pointless history thrown in as a filler, it really just went to waste.

Also I have to add that I HATED Akiva. He seemed so pointless in the entire text! The romance was so wishy-washy and unbelievable that the book could have been TONS better if it was relieved of his presence. Here's an idea, instead of HIM, why don't we add in a wickedly evil antagonist, because this book seemed to be severely lacking in a villain. Come on Taylor, I've read your other books, I KNOW you can make an insanely mean villain.

So to sum it up: Loved the Dreamdark series, however this book was painfully boring, the last 20% sucked harder than anything I've ever read and I basically just skimmed to the end (which also sucked), definitely will not be reading the sequel.

Ah, Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Where to start?

There was a lot about this book that I loved, especially in the first half or so of the story. First of all, the setting- It starts off in Prague, with the characters attending art school, no less, and with Karou, our beautiful heroine, occasionally visiting a shop run by good-natured monster-like creatures, where she was raised before moving to her own place. Cool, right?

Then there is Karou. Her origins are mysterious. Her adoptive 'family' of monsters is mysterious. The work she does for them is mysterious. She is mystery to even herself because no one will tell her where she came from or why she has connections to these mysterious magical creatures. One thing I loved was the way she balanced all this with her normal life among humans. When asked about something that seems odd about her, she just tells the truth but acts like it is a joke. I loved this because I would probably do the same thing! Her personality just seemed very real, for a while, and her lack of any serious angst about her odd circumstances was refreshing.

Then the writing- there were some absolutely beautiful scenes. I remember one in particular about Karou's friend and aspiring puppeteer Zuzanna (another very likeable character) putting on her first street performance. It was surprisingly moving.

My issue with this book was where the story went later on. It started off as a sort of offbeat magical/ slice of life story in a different setting, and turned into something entirely different; much more dramatic, large-scale and "epic" (at least, it seemed like that's what it was trying to be) than was ever hinted at earlier on. All of a sudden, entire magical races and worlds were threatened, and cross-lifetime romance was showing up (why has that become a trend? It seems so overblown and melodramatic to me.)

Overall, it was good, but I wish it had been kept more small-scale, because the strongest parts of the story were those that dealt with the characters' daily lives, relationships and questions. In the end I think some will love this book and others will be lukewarm towards it. It is quite a matter of taste, but going into it, you should be ready for a pretty drastic change in tone and story halfway through.

Everything started out perfect, the gorgeous cover, beautiful writing that captured the imagination, a unique world with quirky and fascinating characters, an incredible background setting, and a story that I was able to sink comfortably into and lose myself for a while. Unfortunately, this only lasted about halfway through the book.

The story takes place mostly in Prague and we follow Karou as she travels through otherworldly portals to run errands throughout the world for Brimstone, the chimera, who despite his monstrous appearance had raised Karou from infancy and he, along with Issa and her serpents, are the only family she knows. Brimstone is a collector of teeth, both human and beast, and the traders that bring him these teeth are paid with wishes. The strength of the wishes are dependent on the value of the teeth. I found this to be such an intriguing concept and I couldn't wait to learn the details of what the teeth were used for and how he acquired the wishes. I was quickly swept up in this unusual world that the author created with such vividly expressive writing.

On one of her errands for Brimstone, Karou finds herself directly in the path of the angel, Akiva. These angels are the sworn enemies of the chimera and have been at war with them for hundreds of years. Akiva is torn by his urge to attack Karou and at the same time protect her. It turns out, Akiva is haunted by the memory of Madrigal, who at one point had almost made him believe things could be different and Karou reminds him of this lost love.

While I was so deeply engrossed in the first half of this book, by the time Akiva was introduced and the story began discussing his history with Madrigal, I had slowly begun to lose interest. The writing was still wonderful, but for some reason, the author took the plot in a direction that didn't at all work for me. I'm not sure why, but it seemed as if by introducing the plot twist, it took something significant from the story, and I was no longer engaged in it. I didn't hate it, it was actually worse than hating it, by the end, I no longer even cared about what happened. I ended up just feeling kind of bleh about the whole thing. I wondered at one point if the author sacrificed a more interesting plot direction to focus on the "tragic romance" aspect.

I know that I am one of the very few that did not absolutely love Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I will say that I WANTED to love it, I started out loving it, but something happened on the way to Heaven, so to speak. I am still rating it a three for the quality of the writing and some of the wonderful characters and the amazing first half.