Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone
by Laini Taylor
September 1, 2011:  Little, Brown & Company

"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?"

Review

I always wanted to read a story about an angel and a demon falling in-love.  At last, someone did.  And might I say beautifully!

You might at first find the book differently.  To start off, there's nothing usual about the character of Karou.  With stark blue hair, sketches of uncanny monsters as her masterpieces, and tattoos on her hand.  And normal isn't really the kind of life she leads.  The monsters she sketches are real, and they are her guardians.  She lives with them sometimes, and she does errands for them.  Errands that mostly includes traveling to different parts of the world, via their dimensional door, to do business with both humans and supernaturals that trades teeth for wishes. 

I love her character because she seems to live in the present.  She is both loved by her human friends and demon family.  She is a strong-headed girl who knows where her heart lies. 

Then we meet the character of Akiva, whose hatred for demons is rooted from the past.  She will cross paths with Karou, and the consequences of his actions will change both his and her Karou's life. 

His character started off as aloof, fueled with hate, and unwavering focus to end the war between the angels and demons.  Curiously it was never told how he will end it.  Surprisingly, when we find out how it ended up as tragic. 

 The characters were given life by details, very graphic, just enough that it was not a description overload.  It felt like the author was sketching the characters for you as she's drawing them. This goes for the setting of the story as well.  Set against in the beautiful city of Prague.  I haven't been there, but after I read this I want to see it for myself.

The story is beautifully and vividly written.  A love story wrought in tragedy and hope.  I adore how the characters were able to show the beauty within the dark creatures, and the malevolent side of angels.  Both have the capacity to be each others' opposite.  The story behind the war is something to look forward to as well.  I want to know more.  The readers are just given enough to have a background of what happened and is happening.  But I think there's more to it that will be unraveled in the next book.