Tori's Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Hardcover: 432 pages
Price: $18.99
ISBN: 978-0316134026
Released: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Hachette 
Author's Website: Laini Taylor 
Buy it: Amazon
Obtained: Sandy 
Genre: YA
Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone 
Book Order:
1. Daughter of Smoke and Bone

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 otherworldly 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?

My Rating:

My Opinion: 
My own little book faery, Sandy sent me this book, and boy, I cannot thank her enough for peer pressuring me into reading it!

Amazingly unique, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE is written by an author who has magic in her fingers. The way all the words flowed on the page instantly made me jealous of Laini's skills. But more importantly, those very same skills inspired me to write again. Me, the chick who's been frustrated with her WIP ever since she started revising last semester.

There were moments where I was almost moved to tears while reading this novel. There were many more where I was laughing out loud, tickled by how smooth and hilarious the characters were. Even more moments were dedicated to rereading amazing lines of description that made me think of a kick-ass action movie or video game.

In short, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE was full of epic awesome, and my review, like many others, will not give it the justice it deserves.

So why not a perfect 5? Well... there was a lot of back-story, and at times, it felt like the story was lagging a little bit. Not enough to make me bored or want to give up, but enough that I kind of started to lose focus and wanted to flip ahead to another fun action scene. This could be because it was written in third person, but I don't think so. There was a lot of information to absorb, and I think that I needed to be more alert to fully appreciate the text.

If you're craving a YA that's got a backbone, that's got a unique tone, and is refreshing in every single way, DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE is your YA. It deserves all the hype it gets, and I hope that many of you will enjoy it as much as I did. Preorder, borrow, bribe... do what you must, but make sure you read this title sooner rather than later!