Review: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Days of Blood and Starlight
(Daughter of Smoke and Bone #2)
by Laini Taylor
Published:




Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

This book? @#$%^&*. Yes, because it’s really indescribable, but in a very good way. This book...it’s really something. The story’s very different and unique than most, and I’d practically kill to have Laini Taylor’s talent at writing. She’s absolutely, no arguments, a pro (like a boss!). That wide range of vocabulary and naturally artistic imagination could actually hurt the esteems of some writer wannabes out here.

Beautiful, exhilarating, wonderfully crafted—it’s the kind of book you’d like to keep in a treasure chest. I’m even pondering deeply from time to time in between reading. It’s a masterpiece—each detail skilfully made creating a priceless treasure. And the cover, well, no shit. I doubt anybody who’d run into it in a bookstore won’t check it out.

               

If you thought the Daughter of Smoke and Bone was amazing enough, well, I can already imagine your awestruck face when you discovered a book that good could actually be topped off by an even better one. The fantastical, harshly wonderful world of Eretz—with chimaeras at war with the seraphim—versus the dull but peaceful life of Karou doing art with friends and a normal life, in another world: this creative plot does not quite give you permission to put a book down so easily.

A wonderful story of love, betrayal, revenge, and war. And not so much common in other books, this one has no dull part. Everything, even mere sentences and passages, were delicately crafted into beautiful metaphors and descriptions, creating different cultures and feelings making you fall deep and live in an entirely different world from your reading couch. Several battered pages actually remain in my copy, reminders of the parts I read again and again because they were just really remarkable and beautiful and I so could not get over them.

                

You’d also think it would be a serious story of century long battle with lovers on opposing races, keeping secrets and making impossible choices—well, there’s that—but 5 chapters into the book and I was laughing my ass off of Zuzana’s nerdy humor. I’m also adding Karou to my list of favourite heroines. It’s seldom you come across a kickass chimaera ressurectionist with blue hair. And cool hamsas aside, she’s also very strong and smart. I was really caught into the story, and I was in the last chapter when, well...you’ll know eventually. Oh stop it, you. And so here I am again, on the part where you just finished a very good book and you’re bearing the pain of waiting for its next instalment. Rock it, Laini!

Words!
“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a new way of living—one without massacres and torn throats and bonfires of the fallen, without revenants or bastard armies or children ripped from their mothers’ arms to take their turn in the killing and dying.

Once, the lovers lay entwined in the moon’s secret temple and dreamed of a world that was like a jewel-box without a jewel—a paradise waiting for them to find it and fill it with their happiness.

This was not that world.”