Quirk Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1) by Laini Taylor

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? 

PREFACE:

Like everyone in the YA world, I'd heard lots of great things about Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone. However, I was hesitant of the possibility of this book being a little too out-there for me. But when I got the chance to read it, I couldn't pass it up. So did Taylor's strange novel win me over?

Sort-of.

WRITING:

From the beginning it is clear that this novel is well-crafted, the words and sentences forming to create a rich atmosphere that set the tone for the story. There were times it felt a bit overdone, especially later on as romance gets involved, but overall the writing was vivid and pretty and made things easily imaginable.

SETTING:

The original setting for the story is Prague, but it is not the only setting by far. Taylor does well with all of the descriptions, whether they are of this world or another. The atmosphere felt right for each location, no matter how different, and I could picture them all easily.

CHARACTERS:

At first, I liked Karou. I thought she was interesting and flawed and a little broken. As things continued, I still liked her, but when it came right down to it, I couldn't really relate or connect to her. She does some pretty awesome things, but there was a point where she started to feel too jaded or too unyielding in her emotions and it just turned me off. After the big reveal, she seemed to accept things too easily, then after the even bigger reveal, it was another emotional reversal.

Akiva was almost the opposite, starting out being the cold, dead feeling one who became overly emotional. I mean, I understood it all once it was explained, but the mood swings made things feel off.

When it came to most of the other characters, there was a two-dimensional feel to them. I don't think they were actually two-dimensional; I think it came from them being so stuck in their ways and views that it felt like there was nothing else to their characters. Thankfully, they weren't all that way. Brimstone ended up being a nice surprise, and I liked how Madrigal's sister turns out, even if I didn't like her specifically.  I also thoroughly enjoyed Karou's human friend, Zuzanna, and liked every scene she turned up in.

DOWNSIDE:

While in the end I found this story quite interesting, there were two main issues I had with it. The first was the wishy-washy POV. It was definitely told in third person, but it wasn't limited to just one character at a time. We'd be seeing things in third person from Karou's point of view, then in the next sentence it would be like we were seeing things from Akiva's side. It confused me quite a bit and I wish the POV had been a more rigid or had had clear divisions when it shifted.

The second thing only added to the confusion, and that was the jumping between past and present and the overlapping of the events being recounted. I didn't mind the sort-of dual-narrative going on, or the fact that there were flashbacks, but we would be in a flashback that would flash-forward, then flashback again, all without returning to the present day. And because at those points we didn't have the whole story yet, it was very easy to get lost in the timeline.

Then there was the fact that the last major chunk of the book is spent on the story that happened in the past, which completely disconnected me from the original story. While it was all necessary, and I actually enjoyed that bit more than the rest, how everything was laid out just didn't work for me.

There was also a lot of overlapping, as in, you would read the same sentence more than once because you were getting a continuation of a previously visited event from a different perspective. While it was cool at first, eventually it becomes tiring because, again, things were just all over the place, making the story feel jagged. I get why the book was pieced together this way (because you learn a little bit here, then there, and eventually you get the big picture) but it pulled me out of the narrative repeatedly and I sometimes had a difficult time returning to it.

COOL STUFF:

There were a lot of interesting things about Daughter of Smoke and Bone. The one that stood out for me most was the world Karou called Elsewhere and the mythology of the creatures that lived there. I love lore and mythologies so this part was right up my alley. Also, the two races having distinct histories and beliefs about things was a nice touch.

As I mentioned above, the story told in flashbacks (or memories, as it were) was my favorite. While I'm not big on epic romances, there was a sweeping quality to it and with Taylor's writing, it was easy to get caught up in it all. I also liked all the action and intrigue that came from that narrative.

Lastly, the big reveals really capped off the novel. Finally finding out how things happened and then the aftermath of earlier events was a great way to end it. It makes me curious to see exactly what Taylor could have up her sleeve for the next book because after all the crazy stuff in this one, I can't begin to fathom how off-the-wall it would have to be to live up to the wild ride that this book is.

VERDICT:

While Daughter of Smoke and Bone is definitely different from anything I've read before, the writing and strange story is engaging enough to keep the pages turning. As for myself, I only truly liked part of the book as the problems with the story's structure and my disconnection from the main character kept me from being fully engrossed. Even so, Laini Taylor is a talented writer and storyteller, and most likely I will pick up the sequel.