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#5 Platform: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Mar. 4th, 2012 11:53 pmOddly, this really made me miss that time I used to have blue hair.
Book #10: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I had a lot of expectations for this book, just for having picked it up off a best-of-2011 list from someone whose opinions I usually trust on it, and because I really wanted to see the setting. I don't know of a lot of other books set in Prague, and I wanted to see how it played it. Turned out this book was pretty awesome, for the most part, but not quite all the way there for me.
So here's the story of our blue-haired, tattooed teenager Karou, who's living a double life, an art student in Prague, and a errand girl for her adoptive family, who just happen to be a bunch of chimera-like demons, made up of different types of people and animals. Yes, our Karou's formative years were spent in a shop that trades in all sorts of teeth in exchange for wishes of all sizes, run by a big demon named Brimstone. Karou's a bit impulsive, using wishes to color her hair, to annoy romantic rivals, etc. But she's a pretty dependable and capable sort. She's a quite well-realized character all around, really - fierce and capable and clever, lonely and longing and vulnerable. I really liked her.
All's not well in the world of demon tooth collecting, though, and before too long, angels appear, marking all of the shop's portals into the world. We get a lot of backstory as to the nature of the world of the angels and the chimera, and about the characters and their relationships to that world and this one; really, the world building is very good, and the characters on both sides nicely realized. I really enjoyed the feel of the place, and Taylor's prose helps out - vividly descriptive, really nailing Prague, and giving you a sense of the other world that feels fresh and well done. I was really happy with all of that.
The only thing I didn't like was the big paranormal romance jumpout, and I feel like I have to put something in here about it. We have an honest-to-goodness feels-like-we're-fated head-over-heels romance deal in this thing with a perfect angel of a guy, cold at first but opens up to just our heroine because she feels special, is so beautiful that it seems unreal... stop me if this sounds like you've heard it before. I think it's done well for what it is, and it's redeemed by some of the backstory, and I like the character in question well enough, but it definitely wasn't a turn-on, and if you really can't handle that kind of thing, I'd skip the book.
But that said, I wouldn't recommend skipping it. No, I'd recommend reading it a whole lot. Real world-building, real characters, and real consequences to small decisions and large. I'm definitely reading the sequel to this one when it comes out.
Next up: A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Book #10: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Provenance: Borrowed from Westmount Library
I had a lot of expectations for this book, just for having picked it up off a best-of-2011 list from someone whose opinions I usually trust on it, and because I really wanted to see the setting. I don't know of a lot of other books set in Prague, and I wanted to see how it played it. Turned out this book was pretty awesome, for the most part, but not quite all the way there for me.
So here's the story of our blue-haired, tattooed teenager Karou, who's living a double life, an art student in Prague, and a errand girl for her adoptive family, who just happen to be a bunch of chimera-like demons, made up of different types of people and animals. Yes, our Karou's formative years were spent in a shop that trades in all sorts of teeth in exchange for wishes of all sizes, run by a big demon named Brimstone. Karou's a bit impulsive, using wishes to color her hair, to annoy romantic rivals, etc. But she's a pretty dependable and capable sort. She's a quite well-realized character all around, really - fierce and capable and clever, lonely and longing and vulnerable. I really liked her.
All's not well in the world of demon tooth collecting, though, and before too long, angels appear, marking all of the shop's portals into the world. We get a lot of backstory as to the nature of the world of the angels and the chimera, and about the characters and their relationships to that world and this one; really, the world building is very good, and the characters on both sides nicely realized. I really enjoyed the feel of the place, and Taylor's prose helps out - vividly descriptive, really nailing Prague, and giving you a sense of the other world that feels fresh and well done. I was really happy with all of that.
The only thing I didn't like was the big paranormal romance jumpout, and I feel like I have to put something in here about it. We have an honest-to-goodness feels-like-we're-fated head-over-heels romance deal in this thing with a perfect angel of a guy, cold at first but opens up to just our heroine because she feels special, is so beautiful that it seems unreal... stop me if this sounds like you've heard it before. I think it's done well for what it is, and it's redeemed by some of the backstory, and I like the character in question well enough, but it definitely wasn't a turn-on, and if you really can't handle that kind of thing, I'd skip the book.
But that said, I wouldn't recommend skipping it. No, I'd recommend reading it a whole lot. Real world-building, real characters, and real consequences to small decisions and large. I'm definitely reading the sequel to this one when it comes out.
Next up: A Visit from the Goon Squad.
