“Hope is the real magic, child.”

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 420

Source & Format: bought for Kindle

Amazon // The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads: 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 hairactually 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 beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery 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?

WOW. I am still reeling from the experience of reading this absolutely wonderful book. Somewhere around the halfway point of the story, I came to the conclusion that this is the story that I had been waiting for. I’m not sure quite how to explain what I mean with that, but it just is. It was utterly perfect, at least for me.

 

It tells the story of a seemingly normal girl, Karou, who lives and goes to school in Prague. When Karou is not working on her art, avoiding her ex boyfriend, or hanging out with her best friend Zuzanna, she is running errands for Brimstone, her otherworldly guardian. Even though Karou doesn’t quite understand the errands that she runs (collecting teeth), she continues doing so, because the only family she has ever known is with Brimstone. This all changes when she meets an angel by the name of Akiva. Even though they are from separate worlds and families, they are drawn to one another. Karou finds herself wanting to learn just where she came from before she happened to be with Brimstone, and Akiva just might have some of those answers she so desperately needs.

 

Now, hear me out here. I am rather particular with paranormal and urban fantasies. I like to feel that an author has really thought things through, and that they are prepared to take me on a journey somewhere that I certainly couldn’t go in my real and mundane life. Laini Taylor did that. I feel like the worldbuilding that took place in this novel was nothing short of amazing. You could just tell that she has left nothing to chance. Nothing annoys me more than when I feel that something was just thrown into a story without an actual thought, and that didn’t happen here. Every little thing made sense in the end. Also, the lyrical prose in which the author wrote! I was completely enamored with Taylor’s writing! It’s hard for me to describe what I mean by this, but it was obvious that she chose every word very carefully. There were times when I would reread certain passages just because I wanted to drink it in all over again.

“I don’t know many rules to live by,” he’d said. “But here’s one. It’s simple. Don’t put anything unnecessary into yourself. No poisons or chemicals, no fumes or smoke or alcohol, no sharp objects, no inessential needles- drug or tattoo- and… no inessential penises, either.”

“I swear I hate more people every day. Everyone annoys me. If I’m like this now, what am I going to be like when I’m old?”

“Hope? Hope can be a powerful force. Maybe there’s no actual magic in it, but when you know what you hope for most and hold it like a light within you, you can make things happen, almost like magic.”

I am going to be pushing this book on everybody I know, seriously. Like I said, this book was everything I have ever wanted in a story! I don’t even know how to properly capture my emotions right now, because I am still in absolute awe of what I just experienced. If you are in the mood for a completely original story that is going to take you places, please read this book =)