Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Number of Pages: 418
Year Published: 2011
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Young Adult
Summary: Around the world, black hand prints 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 grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly 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 beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery 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?
Our Star Rating
3.75
"Once upon a time, a little Girl was raised by monsters
But angels burned the doorways to their world
and she was all alone"
Daughter of Smoke and bones takes you on a dark, mystifying tale of a girl named Karou, who is desperately seeking the truth. The tale is set in ghostly, romantic Prague, where 17-year-old, independent, and very creative Karou is an art student. She is called "home" to fulfill her duties for her family of loving, albeit inhuman, creatures who raised her. Mysterious as Karou seems to her friends, her life is equally secretive to her. How did she come to live with the Chimaera? Confused to why paternal Brimstone has her collecting teeth, especially the peculiar gathering of human ones, Karou constantly has a feeling her life is full of falsehoods. And why is she plagued by the notion that she wasn't whole? Though she struggled to connect the story lines, Taylor interweaves skillfully, witty depictions of modern teenage life with equally believable portrayals of frightening unearthly beings. When black handprints start to appear on doorways throughout the world, Karou is seized into the ancient lethal rivalry between the Chimaeras and the Seraphim. Angels and Demons, some might say? What are they really fighting about? Was it a battle of good vs. evil? God vs. Satan? It takes one monster to start, but what creates them? Does war make monsters, or do monsters create war?
" Once upon a time, an angel lay dying in the mist,
And a devil knelt over him and smiled”
Karou’s agonizing journey to find “Elsewhere”, leaves her heart trapped between the worlds of angels and demons, while Akiva’s love yearns for acceptance in a world of controversy. Karou wishes that it would only take butterflies to hold their souls together, but wishes can be deceptive. “Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.” Karou’s wishes that were granted to her, were false hopes of happiness, while Karou, herself, is true. Brimstone blessed her with the name Karou meaning “hope”, with desires of bliss, in hopes that the constant agony of his restricted soul, would save Karou from her heart-rending past. Taylor leaves you wanting the understanding of Karou’s horrific past. Intrigued by her present. With “hope” for a restored future.
“Once upon a time,
an angel and a devil fell in love,
It did not end well.”
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