Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)

by Laini Taylor

Errand requiring immediate attention. Come.

The note was on vellum, pierced by the talons of the almost-crow that delivered it. Karou read the message. 'He never says please', she sighed, but she gathered up her things.

When Brimstone called, she always came.

In general, Karou has managed to keep her two lives in balance. On the one hand, she's a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand-girl to a monstrous creature who is the closest thing she has to family. Raised half in our world, half in 'Elsewhere', she has never understood Brimstone's dark work - buying teeth from hunters and murderers - nor how she came into his keeping. She is a secret even to herself, plagued by the sensation that she isn't whole.

Now the doors to Elsewhere are closing, and Karou must choose between the safety of her human life and the dangers of a war-ravaged world that may hold the answers she has always sought.

Reviewed by Amanda on

5 of 5 stars

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Original review: http://onabookbender.com/2012/01/04/review-daughter-of-smoke-and-bone-by-laini-taylor/

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is one of those kinds of reviews that I am reluctant to write for fear of dredging up everything that I experienced while reading. This is not an easy to book to read, not because it’s poorly written (it’s not; it is beautifully written), but because it picks out your emotions, drawing them out into a line, and then wrenches and twists each of them in turn. You know this emotionally wrenching experience will happen; reading the book is like being chased with an impending sense of doom, but you must know what happens. You are never quite given enough information until suddenly you know too much and there is no turning back from what you learned.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is painful. But there is beauty in pain. There is no solace in this book; it will gut your heart and stomp on it. We need books like these to remind us that not all love stories are fairy tales. Daughter of Smoke and Bone so carefully manipulates your emotions, but they are not your emotions, they are the character’s emotions. You are Akiva. You are Karou. You don’t want to push forward, but you know there is no other option. If you want a happy book, this is not your book. If you want a book that toys with your emotions, something that will make you experience a wide breadth and depth of emotions, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is your book.

Having been to Prague before, I was happily surprised by the depth and accuracy of the descriptions of Prague. It lends an added sense of validity to the story, making everything — even the parts not set in Prague — that much more real. In some ways, there are two different stories within Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Two stories that intertwine and fuse into one single and heartbreaking ending, but not in the way one might expect. The end is far from over. There is still hope.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 2 December, 2011: Finished reading
  • 2 December, 2011: Reviewed