Review: Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Publication Date: September 27, 2011

Pages: 420

Source: Publisher

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 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?

***

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is by far one of the strangest (in a good way) stories that I have ever read. Laini Taylor has such an insanely huge imagination and I cannot figure out how she came up with such a unique story.

This book combines paranormal, Greek mythology, and total randomness that are all thrown together to create one heck of a story. The world-building is ahem, out of this world and is like nothing I have ever read before. While the first half of the book dragged a bit for me, the second half was a total page turner. I didn’t think of this book as highly romantic, but some of the steamiest lines ever are in Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which was a bit unexpected for me. The second half was much steamier than the first half, and here is one of my fave sexy quotes:

“He was focused on her with extraordinary intensity. ‘Your soul sings to mine. My soul is yours, and it always will be, in any world. No matter what happens –‘ His voice cracked, and he took a breath. ‘I need you to remember that I love you.”

*taken from the ARC, which may have been changed in the finished copy*

Holy hotness right?! Your soul sings to mine? I pretty much melted when I read this line.

I’m not even sure where Laini Taylor is going to take the story in the next book because her imagination is astounding. If you are looking for an incredibly unique and imaginative story, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the way to go.