Review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

by Isabelle Doan

Website/Goodreads/Amazon

Random Info:
Release Date: September 27th 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Pages: 417 pages (hardcover)

Series: Yes, this is #1

My Format: Library (audiobook)

Time it Took me to Read: audio is 14 hours

Rating: Library/Borrow/e-book/Paperback/Hardcover

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 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?

I believe it’s an age thing.

I’ve often been told that teenagers are just as viable as adults- that our opinions matter, too. That we count as people as much as the next forty year old. And yes, I agree with that to a certain degree.

But as a young person, I can tell you that there’s a lot that I don’t understand. That I’ve never experienced- that I can’t imagine until I’ve seen it, felt it, heard its harrowing cries.

One of these things is love.

That’s where Daughter of Smoke and Bone has its biggest fault. The first line of the book is “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.” This is referring to the two main characters of the story, Karou and Akiva. The only problem is that I didn’t get their love. I didn’t feel a connection. It was, to put it simply, insta love.

Maybe that’s not the author’s fault at all. Everyone over the age of twenty who has read this book has given it such high praise- anybody under that age had less than good things to say. I read and watched a lot of reviews on this book before writing my own, and while reading many teenagers’, I began to realize that their main complaint was the so-called insta-love.

[Here’s where I add that I say that I mean majority, meaning… my Goodreads friends. If you’re 85 and you hated this book, good for you! Comment and we can talk, because I like you.]

One of the goals of writing is to make a reader understand and sympathize. Laini Taylor did this nicely with Karou, as I thought she was a great heroine. However, the romance- MY biggest gripe as well- left me wondering if I was missing something. I wanted to rate this five stars so badly. The world building was stunning, and it had a rich cast of characters, and it was so beautifully imagined. But the romance between Akiva and Karou was just depressing and made me not want to read.

The romance was comparable to the one in City of Bones. Utterly ridiculous, and full of yawn, yawn whatever. Karou and Clary both drew their perfect love interests in sketchbooks, half of the book was filled with descriptions of Jace’s and Akiva’s perfectness, blah blah twinkies are dry. The difference between the two books is that the last half of City of Bones didn’t completely revolve around the romance. Being such a large book as well, that’s a lot of pages! It boggled my mind how Daughter of Smoke and Bone would spend 200 pages on a romance, yet let the actual falling in love last about 10 pages, sans 50 pages of Akiva stalking Karou.

I kept reading anyway because everything outside of that was great. But whenever Akiva showed up, he brought everything crashing down. For one, he had this “pity me” vibe going on. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to sympathize with him because of that, but it just sort of made me angry, like the people with problems who go on reality shows just to get attention. (I’m not talking about actual people with actual problems. I’m talking about those chicks that appear on Dr. Phil, or My Strange Addiction.)

Secondly, he was described as beautiful repeatedly. I get that beautiful people make the world go round, but that should not be the only prerequisite for a relationship.

But wait. This wasn’t a relationship. It was full on, desperate, desperate love- the kind that is told so gorgeously, that I really wanted to love it myself. But I couldn’t really bring myself to, because I just didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand the romance.

Considering the romance takes up half of the book, this is a problem. I felt like it was used to move along some plot points that could have been resolved with more action, because, believe, me, Laini Taylor can write good action scenes.

But I think Laini Taylor can write, period. (Although I should add that this is the type of writing with an adjective before each word. Not for the people who think beauty is in simple things.) Maybe later in life, I can appreciate the beauty of this book. For now, I will say that Daughter of Smoke and Bone was humorous with riveting creativity, but I could easily put it down.

ARC Review of Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

by Isabelle Doan

Website/Goodreads/Amazon

Random Info:
Release Date: August 7th, 2012

Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's

Pages: 416 pages (paperback)

Series: Yes, this is #1

My Format: ARC from a friend

Time it Took me to Read: 12 hours

Rating: Library/Borrow/e-book/Paperback/Hardcover

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men—thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the kings council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

It's no secret that Throne of Glass was once one of those books published online. The first thing I saw when I got the ARC was "Maas already has thousands of fans" and "published on FictionPress, where she has thousands of loyal fans". Yup- it was used as a marketing tool.

I don't blame the publishers one bit. I'm a fan of quite a few online authors- Hope Adon from Wattpad wrote one of my favorite books ever. So I was not a bit skeptical when I went into Throne of Glass. I was expecting it to be as awesome as her rabidly loyal fans have said.

Throne of Glass is about an assassin, Celaena, who is taken from the prisoner's slave mines and is thrust into competition, in order to win her freedom. Said competition features 23 other competitors- other assassins, thieves, mercenaries, Chic-Fil-A employees*, you know- all the kinds of people capable of murder and wrong doing. They each compete to become Ardalan's assassin. But I quickly learned there's something more sinister involved.

From what I've researched, the original actually did not have the competition. The original Throne of Glass - titled Queen of Glass- was a retelling of Cinderella. I can see many places where this original badassery might have gotten diluted.

For one, in the FictionPress version, Celaena had many suitors, not simply the love triangle between Choal, a captain, and Dorian, the prince. I can see why this would be true, because in the beginning, when male characters were introduced, they were either described as handsome or total brutes. Or old.

The love triangle itself was very reminiscent of the one in Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. Seriously. Dorian makes for a good Will impostor. Both enjoy banter, and being jerks sometime. Both are also good love interests.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that both Tessa and Celaena like books??

Seriously. Assassin has time to read. I didn't believe it either. But apparently, Celalena has enough hours in the day to work out her bod, solve mysteries, be friends with a Princess, and manage to snag two guys. And be a highly skilled assassin. At age 18.

(That's yet another change. The Celaena in Queen of Glass was in her twenties.)

I guess you can tell that I thoroughly enjoyed Celaena's character. She was what you might you call a BAMF. Like, even more of a BAMF than Katniss. Because really, Katniss picks plants in the woods. Celaena swings from ropes to save her competitors.

So really, it was very much a tale of friendship and strength as much as it was a believable romance with strong characters. I'd recommend it for those who loved middle grade fantasy as a child, and are looking for something with a bit more depth.

All in all, a satisfying read with extravagant detailing and world building. I am really looking forward to book number two.

4 STARS.

*I was kidding about that, if you sincerely thought I was serious. No really. THERE WERE NO CHIC-FIL-A EMPLOYEES!

Harry Potter Sequel to be Published

So guess what I learned guys?

JK Rowling is going to publish a series of short stories as a sequel to the Harry Potter series. They're going to be alternately told from the point of view of the Potter children, and the Wesley children and people like Teddy and Scorpio. AND there are going to be prequels from the point of view of Snape and Lily and Sirius.

Watch this video from JK Rowling explaining it.

A quote from the video:

"I originally had no intentions to make this, but to celebrate the Olympics being held in Great Britain, I've decided to make exclusive short stories."

Okay, so there's no sequel series.

However, today, July 31st, is Harry Potter's fictional birthday.

I'm actually contemplating crying because I, like many others, grew up with the Harry Potter series. It was my childhood, and the reason I got into reading. If you open to "The Prince's Tale" chapter in the 7th book, there are tear stains all over it. And that's saying something, because I have read that chapter multiple times over the course of the last few years. Every time I was feeling awful, I would read that. Whenever I wanted to escape, I'd flip to Harry's problems. And that time someone in my family died, I was struck with a sort of insomnia that would only be alleviated once I read the whole Harry Potter series.

To think it's already been 5 years since the last book was published. I cannot tell you how sad I am that the series is over.

However, I would not want any sequels to the series. It would ruin the life I've imagined for Harry. Stories do go on after the last page, and I want to acknowledge that by this post, and by celebrating his birthday, however childish or stupid you may think it is.

I'm no die hard Potterhead, and if you don't like the series, that's fine. Reading is subjective. I'm just happy to have found a home at Hogwarts, and to have been friends with Harry, along with many others.

Happy birthday, Harry. I hope all is well.