DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE - LAINI TAYLOR //

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the first in a trilogy by Laini Taylor. It follows Karou, an art student living in Prague with unusual family and living situations. She was raised by chimaera, beings who are part human and part animal. Karou has no idea how she came to be an orphan to these chimaera. She runs errands for Brimstone, her father figure, where she is sent out to collect teeth for his work, and she is unaware of the use of these teeth for his work. While on one of her missions, she runs into an angel (specifically, a seraph) and is instantly drawn to him, despite their initial violence and fighting.

This book was incredibly difficult for me to take in. The beginning is terribly cliche and cheesy, and it definitely got a good deal of eye-rolls from me. The book proceeds to be painstakingly strung out. However, what makes this book worth it is the last few chapters. The slow-to-read story is worth all of the wait for the ending chapters. It contains incredible plot twists and cliffhangers, and despite their somewhat predictability, they maintain their interest and excitement-inducing abilities. 

Laini Taylor’s writing style is what I contribute to it being so meticulous to read. She uses a very advanced vocabulary very often, and I found myself having to use the dictionary app on my Kindle to decipher the meaning of her intelligent choices of words. I also found that my “background” in art history (meaning my one AP class in art history) was beneficial due to Taylor’s frequent descriptions of the beautiful scenery. She focused heavily on the architecture and scenery every so often and the vocabulary and knowledge I picked up from taking art history as a class definitely helped me better understand and even appreciate what she was writing about.

On a number scale, I struggle to pinpoint this book at one score. It was excruciating to get through, what with its longwinded descriptions and bordering-on-boring more often than not. However, the story was fascinating and invigorating and I am eager to continue the series. I suppose I’d give it a 3.5/5 just for what it put me through in terms of how long it felt like it took me to get through this book and how often I rolled my eyes or sighed over the cliched and cheesy portions of this book. Despite this, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an exciting story that will grip you in the same fashion as Twilight, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, et cetera. (I can almost feel people telling me it’s sacrilege to group Twilight and Harry Potter in the same list. Oh well.)