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

Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1)

Author: Laini Taylor

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Fantasy

Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

Synopsis/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 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?-Taken from GoodReads

From the book on: Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

     Gosh, this is a really great book, with its epic story line, the wholeness and richness of the world-building, even of its slightly strange aspects, this book is close to perfection in my opinion.

    First of all, I must say I love all the mysteries set up from the start of the book. Black hand prints on doors? Made by mysterious people with winged shadows? I am sure you could guess what species these strangers are, but you don't know the rest, and I am sure you will be delighted to find out ;)

    Second, I love all the strangeness (in a good way) of the book, especially at the start. When we were introduced to Karou, a girl with blue hair naturally growing out of her head, runs secret errands for her sort-of-family, I was immediately riveted by her. She was just such an interesting character that I couldn't help but want to find out more about her. And knowing her we did, and the pull Karou had on me kind of vanished, with her secrets being peeled and we saw her, knew her. But by then the story had already drawn me in and even without the urge to know all about this peculiar main character, I still read on, and was deeply satisfied with my experience :)

    Which brought me to the third thing, the wholeness of this book. There was a past-life story line going on there and I was glad that the mysteries of the past was revealed slowly, chapter by chapter, bits by bits, mostly through out the book (the last part had more of the past, but it was so cool, I loved it!). There was not really a second when this book was boring, or any parts or events that were redundant. The story was fully developed with a solid back-story, amazing world-building and mysterious and intriguing characters.

     I did have a small complaint, that was that the romance aspect actually took up too much of the story, if you ask me. I am not really a fan of romance, but I don't hate it. Every book has a little romance, sometimes even the whole book is a love story, and those were the kinds that I am quite annoyed with. The whole romance just felt a little too boring to me, I mean some moments were sweet, by too much really made me wanna gag, and I felt that this book had gone a bit overboard. But that's just my opinion, I know a lot of people love books that have a bigger romance aspect in them, or even a whole romance novel, and I am sure this book's love story will be satisfying to you ;)

    By the way, I absolutely loved the writing, the prose. It was so lyrical, beautiful, the prose helped wove a beautiful yet tragic love story with the most unique world-building I have ever seen!  At times the whole metaphor and analogy thing might me a little annoying, when you just want to know what happens next, but most of them are good, and the third person POV blended into the story perfectly. I was aware of it, not like when I read The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers, when I didn't even realize I was reading it, but it was still very good and worked well with the story. Plus the transition of POVs was not confusing at all, and there weren't actually that many POVs, just two, so I am good :)

    Oh, the world-building, where do I begin? It was so great, everything about it was just so well thought-out, there were no holes in it at all. Well, maybe some tiny ones, but those could be easily overlooked. The whole world-building was very imaginative, the paranormal aspect was so unique, it definitely made it stand out of all the paranormal novels being sell these days.

    The story was first set in Prague, and most of the story happened there. I have never been to Prague, but I liked it. The way Taylor described Prague, it sounded like a beautiful city, yet I could feel the melancholy in the air, in between the lines, and that fitted the story pretty well. Hack, this book made me want to go to Prague!

    Like I said before, there were some really interesting characters in this book. Karou, as an example, and Akiva too. His story felt a little less riveting as Karou's, but no doubt it was a sad one. I absolutely love Zuzana. She is Karou's best friend and I really liked her. She might get ignored a lot because Karou always had to read secret errands, but she didn't really left her side, no matter how hurt she was that her best friend was hiding secrets from her. She didn't really appear in the last half of the book, but I would really want to see her more, and I am sure Karou does too! ;)

    I would give this book 4.5 stars! Why not 5 stars you ask? Since I sounded like a salesperson just there, keep ranting on about how great the book is? Well, because the romance kind of annoyed me, so the 0.5 star was gone :P Anyway, it was still a very good book, a little too long for a relaxing read, but it was definitely worth reading. You could read it one part at a time if you don't have time to finish it in one sitting, and the beauty of the book is, it has short chapters! Really, I am that kind of person who couldn't put down a book unless I finish the chapter I was reading, and the short chapters really did justice :P Daughter of Smoke & Bone is a high fantasy novel with unique world-building, mysterious and eccentric characters (at least at first glimpse they were :P And I meant that in a good way) and a bitter-sweet love story that I am sure readers will enjoy, though some parts are a little too much for me. I would recommend this book to every reader out there, the paranormal aspects of this book is really different, the love story was flushed out, though at first it felt a little like insta-love, it turns it wasn't. Hope you will enjoy this book! :)

Rating: 4.5 stars!

Weekly Wrap-Up (4)

Sorry for the missing posts this week and last week...Anyway, check out some new books that I bought! ;) (Linked to Goodreads!)

Angel (US: Angel Burn) by L.A. Weatherly (Angel #1)

Heist Society by Ally Carter (Heist Society #1)

Debutantes by Cora Harrison

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney (The Mockingbirds #1)

This week's posts:

Monday: None, sorry :(

Tuesday: Okay, I know I was acting out of line but I didn't post anything either :P

Wednesday: Review: White Cat by Holly Black (Curse Workers #1)

Thursday: Another undeserved break...

Friday: Weekly meme: Feature & Follow (9)

Saturday: None, I was going to post a review but I couldn't finish Daughter of Smoke & Bone in time, it was good, but I am in sort of a reading rut these past week, I had to will myself to finish White Cat :P (Not that it was bad or anything)

Okay, that's it for this week's wrap-up guys! Did you have a good reading week? Actually mine wasn't really that great. I had all these desire to start a new book when I see an awesome cover, then halfway through I just keep hoping the book would end soon, and the book wasn't really that horrible! I think I am having some sort of reading ADHD, I can't stay in a same book and finish it... Ugh, any cure? I am going to try reading the Dead is series books by Marlene Perez since her books are all super short yet jam-packed with mystery, it would be a good pick-me-up read, but if this doesn't work, I don't know what will... :(

Feature & Follow (9)

I missed posts this week, weird... I forgot them when I crashed right into the bed at night, I think all the studying then writing the novel for NaNoWriMo was getting to me... Well, I did have a good week, I went on the school picnic (it's kind of a tradition in HK school, the name is pretty self-explanatory, each class go on a trip on the normal school day, no class that day!) this Thursday, we went to the beach and had a great time! There was sand everywhere though :P Okay, question of the week:

Q: Books are turned into movies all the time! Turn it around. What movie would make a great book?

Movie into books... Can I say TV shows? I am not exactly a fan of movies :P Just thinking about sitting there for 2 hours makes my butt fall asleep... Well, if it was about TV shows I would say that Once Upon A Time would make a great book series! It would be a wonderful retellings. The show basically had all the elements of a retellings. Dark story lines. Check. A modern twist on the orginial. Check. Plus, it has two main story lines, Storykrook (modern world) and the fairy tales world, these two story lines intertwined all the time, which definitely would look great in a book! Now that I have wrote this, I actually wanted to see the TV show made into a book! :P

What about you guys? What movie would you like to be made into a book?

Review: White Cat by Holly Black (Curse Workers #1)

Title: White Cat (Curse Workers #1)

Author: Holly Black

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Mystery

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Synopsis/Summary: Cassel comes from a family of Curse Workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.-Taken from GoodReads

From the book on: Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / The Book Depository

     I don't know how to describe this book, only that everything is not what it seems and many things in this book turned out to be a con. Con is a main focus of this book, and though I haven't read any con stories before, I liked it. I love books that have heavy mystery, books that make me think (not in a philosophic way, though those are good too) and this book provided just that.

    Cassel woke up from his sleep and found himself standing on the roof, ready to jump. He survived, though somewhat disgracefully, but the school has suspended him. In his leave from school, he went to live with his granddad, and was rewarded with a mystery so big that it could change his whole life...

    The plot is fairly interesting, I love reading about the con work, since it's a complete new territory for me. As I have said before, I love the mystery, and despite the mystery factor, the plot was easy to follow. However, even though the book was all kinds of awesome, I just couldn't get into it. I found myself constantly reading the book then putting it back down after several minutes. It's not that there was anything wrong with the story, or even the writing, but I just couldn't get myself psyched for it at all. There was some close-calls, but I wasn't gripping the book when I read through these parts. There was clearly a climax, yet I didn't find myself racing through the pages, dying to know what happens next. Everything just flows through and I have nothing to criticize about the book, even though I didn't like at all that much. It's kind of weird :P

    I just love the idea of curse workers! It's pretty creative. There are 7 types of curse workers: emotional, luck, death, physical, memory, dream and transformation. Their abilities are pretty self-explanatory from the names, so I won't spend time talking about that. There are blowbacks when you curse someone, so you don't really see workers roaming freely in the book, but the setting did make the book more interesting.

    Almost every character in this book have a secret agenda, and each are just as cunning and suspicious of others as the other. Cassel Sharpe is our guy, the main focus of the story. He is the non-worker in a family of workers, so he's kind of a black sheep in that area, but not in the con part. He is smart, I am sure everyone who finished this book would give him that, but somethings it's a bit irritating that he pretty much let people throw him around like a punchbag. I wanted him to man up, but he didn't really change that much throughout the story. So...

    I hate Lila. She's kind of a love interest for Cassel, and I hate her! She's a self-centered, spoiled brat, and the whole bullying thing doesn't really do it for me. I hate her attitude towards Cassel, she was one of those people that pushed Cassel around and that's not okay with me. I know she has problems of her own but that's not the way to treat the person that's supposed to be your "best friend", according to the blurb.

    The characters that I do like are Sam and Daneca. They are Cassel's friends, and it's nice to finally see someone treat Cassel right.

    I would give this book 3.5 stars. The book is basically one big conspiracy and I love it. I love the smartness behind the story, how things are linked, how Cassel solved the mystery. But somehow this book lacked that something that pulls me in and keep me reading 'til the end. I wasn't really that motivated to read the book, hence the delayed review (this was supposed to go up on Monday :P). Now that I have reviewed it, I still couldn't find what exactly was the book missing, but it was still a worthwhile read. I would recommend this book to YA paranormal and crime story readers, the "crime" in this book will not disappoint, hope you guys will have a better reading experience than me ;)

Ratings: 3.5 stars!

Are you a fan of crime stories? What do you know about the art of con? What kind of curse workers would you want to be? Do you like the book? It's my first time reading Holly Black and I kind of have a high expectation, and it was okay Not striking though :)

Feature & Follow (8)

Another week had pass by, how is your week? I got most of my test result this week (except one subject, the wait is killing me :P) and most of them are pretty good but not as good as I expected, I have to work harder! ;) This week's question is:

Q: Do you mind books with similar ideas to other books? Similar concepts, backgrounds, retellings or pulled-to-publish fanfic?

No, I don't mind books having similar ideas, and I actually quite like retellings! For example, there are tons of paranormal books out there that have the almost same structure of the paranormal world, but as long as the plot is good and the author is able to add her own flair to it, I am okay. I mean, some ideas are hard to not be reused, like the whole love-triangle thing and vampires and stuff, so I think as a reader we can't expect everything from a book is completely original, because that's not possible. We all live in the same world, sometimes even the same society, so some author's thinking route might be similar to another author, but as long as they could use the similar concepts, ideas, backgrounds to spin it into their own story, there's actually nothing to complain about. Of course, there's a fine line between similar and down right plagiarizing, so far I haven't read any book that seemed like it was ripped from another book, which is a good thing :) As for retellings, I love them! Well, as least fairy tales retellings. Some fairy tales are just so bright and happy, and I like that usuallt fairy tales retellings could be a little more dark, they are definitely fairy tales for Young Adults! As for fanfic, I must say I don't read fanfic, because I mostly don't like reading on the computer, nor do I always agree with what other people intercept the characters from the novel from which the fanfic was based on, and you must admit, some fanifcs are horrible. I have never read any pulled-to-publish fanfic, but I don't think I'll be reading them in the near future. As I have said, I am sure something will be different in these books and I don't want it to affect my view on the original novel/series. So no fanfic, thank you very much. 

 

What about you? How do you like books that are quite similar? Do you love them because you love the ideas? Or do you hate them because you think the idea was not being used well in the other book? I mostly just treat every book as an individual, I rarely compare them, 'cause that would be quite unfair, because all books have their own unique features, even if the books are in the same genre, the comparing is still not fair. How about retellings? And fanifics? Comment below :)