Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1) in YA and Beyond

Sep 29, 2011 Brigid ✩ rated it really liked it

Shelves: paranormal, romance, fantasy, demons, young-adult, angels, mythology

Actual rating: 3.5 ... but I'll round it up because I'm nice.

I guess I don't really ... get it.

I've seen this book all over the place for the past few months. It has so many raving reviews from reviewers that I really respect (and usually agree with). There are so many people talking about how it's so amazing and the best YA book of the year ... so on and so forth.

And. Well. I don't know, guys. I thought it was good, but to be honest I wasn't really crazy about it.

Maybe it's because I'm not real ...more

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Jul 23, 2011 Cassi aka Snow White Haggard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2011

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Sometimes I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with paranormals with leanings towards the hate side of things. I love different creatures, new interpretations of mythology and the not-quite-our-world-but-almost settings. But paranormals have a tendency to have the mopiest and weakest female heroines. They tend to fall apart at the love story--too much love at first sight, too little relationship building and way too many love triangles.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is not you 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Sometimes I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with paranormals with leanings towards the hate side of things. I love different creatures, new interpretations of mythology and the not-quite-our-world-but-almost settings. But paranormals have a tendency to have the mopiest and weakest female heroines. They tend to fall apart at the love story--too much love at first sight, too little relationship building and way too many love triangles.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is not your typical paranormal. It's beautiful and lyrical, funny yet not a comedy. Karou, the main character, is a delight to read. She's beautiful and strong. She doesn't know who she is but she does know what she believes. Karou is very much relatable, like someone you know, yet somehow she is so much more. She's so many things I admire in a person. She's loyal, loves-deeply, curious and bold. She'd die for her family and do anything to protect her friends. But she's also painfully lonely, confused about her place in the world and just a little bit vindictive (but in a funny way).

The book is set in the very atmospheric city of Prague (where I've always wanted to visit) and the main character is an art student. Lately I've read a few books with art students as the main character and somehow it always seems to work. They see the world differently and so does the reader. Their problems are not my problems but I can still relate to them. They do things like create giant marionettes and draw naked people without blushing. Art-students, written well, are down-to-earth and cool without being pretentious.

"Zuzana arched an eyebrow. She was a master of the eyebrow arch, and Karou envied her for it. Her own eyebrows did not function independently of each other, which handicapped her expressions of suspicion and disdain."

The writing floats between being very poetic and humorously blunt. Karou despite her otherworldly blue-hair, necklace full of wishes and unconventional family of monsters, is still a seventeen year old girl. She worries that her breath smells like goulash when she thinks she's going to be kissed, wants to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend for taking her virginity and also just happens to run errands for a Chimaera who collects human teeth.

I think Laini Taylor does an excellent job of finding the humanity within the paranormal without sacrificing their otherness. You will not mistake the creatures within this novel for normal humans (sometimes I feel like this is where most parnormals fail) but they aren't so different that you can't understand their motivations.

This is a book that is getting a lot of much-deserved gushing around the internet. It's wonderful. Things that I normally hate work in this book because the author spends enough time building the characters and creating the necessary connections. She builds a main character you can trust. By the time it gets to the love story I trusted Karou's judgement. She's got a good head on her shoulders and is not the boy-chasing type. Knowing Karou allows you to withhold judgement while the love story plays out.

It's not fast-paced, but more character driven. Karou is a mystery--to herself, to her friends, to everyone. This book seems to be all about getting to know Karou, discovering her past and finding her place in the greater cosmic struggle. There are all these oddities and clues. What's behind the other door that Karou's not allowed to open? What's with the teeth? Why are these collection of Chimaera raising a human child? Trust me, it's a mystery worth unravelling.
...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Heidi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

OK so I should have reviewed this one after I finished it because I am having memory problems (which doesn't bode well for the book since it means it is not memorable--at least to me). I would give the first half of this book a solid 4 stars. It was inventive and interesting and I loved the protagonist. Sadly, the second half fell off the rails for me and only averaged around 3 stars. I will be honest and up front and mention that paranormal books are my least favorite genre. I will also add tha ...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Brittany (finally graduated and can once again read for fun) rated it liked it

Shelves: 2012, ya-my-first-love, 2017, 2022-aka-the-year-of-mostly-rereads, 2023-the-year-of-the-kindle, epic-fantasy-sometimes-w-romance

3.5 stars for this one. Paranormal is not really my thing, but I had heard so many great things about this book I just had to give it a try. Imagine my surprise when I found myself really liking the book. I really enjoyed the first half of this book. I was intrigued by the characters and interested to know what would happen next and I wanted to understand the mysteries that Karou was piecing together. But about half way through the book the story completely shifted gears. The tone, the urgency, 3.5 stars for this one. Paranormal is not really my thing, but I had heard so many great things about this book I just had to give it a try. Imagine my surprise when I found myself really liking the book. I really enjoyed the first half of this book. I was intrigued by the characters and interested to know what would happen next and I wanted to understand the mysteries that Karou was piecing together. But about half way through the book the story completely shifted gears. The tone, the urgency, what was of utmost importance... everything changed. It was like reading two different books, and I didn't enjoy the second half of the book nearly as much as the first. Then when we do get back to the main plot from the beginning, with new understanding and insights, everything comes together too quickly it seems. Now we are left hanging without any real resolution.

I'm all in favor of series books. I think they allow for the author to tell a greater, more powerful overarching story. But within each installment of a series there needs to be some type of resolution. Some parts of the story need to come together. This book failed to have that resolution unless you consider the entire second half of the book the resolution to Karou's journey to find out who she is/was, which is entirely too long in my opinion. Better to give an abbreviated version of the past or intersperse it in between other aspects of the current plot. (just my opinion... but with Karou's revelation I can understand why the author chose to reveal things in the manner she did).

To me Brimstone is who holds this book together. He doesn't say much, but when he does we should listen. He's your typical mentor type character and his insights leave the reader (and characters) with the promise of hope (literally). Zuzana adds the necessary human component to the story of the outsider looking in. Kaz is the comic relief, and adds normalcy to Karou's life. And Prague... ah well hearing the author speak of Prague with such beautiful words fills my heart with longings to go back and see the city again. It truly is a unique place of enchanting and haunting beauty.

Now, all that being said, the ending of this book has me very excited at the prospect of what is to come in book #2 and although I didn't know it until the final 3-5 pages, I have no doubt that I will be getting my hands on book #2 soon after it's release date because with an ending like that... how can you not? ...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Berenice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Kaoru is an art student who is famous in her school for her bizarre art work, she paints creatures that seem out of this world, but are they? Kaoru is known for her quirkiness and for disappearing on mysterious "errands". The strangest thing is that she has never had the need to lie, her reality is so out of this world that no one would believe her anyway. Sometimes Kaoru feels like there is something missing about her, something else she should be doing or somewhere else she should be at and as ...more

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Sep 14, 2011 Haley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, loveit, angels-demons

I loved this book. Loved it, I tell you!

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Sep 08, 2011 Jen Halligan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: signed-by-author, favorites

WOW. I don't even know what to say. I want the next book now!!!! Review to come, though I have no idea how to put words to my feelings about this book, this world, these characters. ...more

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