Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1) in WordNerds

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May 11, 2011 Bonnie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-books, young-adult, angels-would-fall, ya-paranormal

This book was somewhat of a disappointment. I went in with pretty high expectations – Laini Taylor is a bone-chillingly beautiful writer and this book has been getting rave reviews – and it went well for a while and then just fell flat.

The beginning was great. Prague is such an inspired location and the perfect setting for mystery and darkness and intrigue. Brimstone's teeth-for-wishes shop that Kaoru was an errand girl for was weird but strangely homey (maybe because it was where Kaoru grew up This book was somewhat of a disappointment. I went in with pretty high expectations – Laini Taylor is a bone-chillingly beautiful writer and this book has been getting rave reviews – and it went well for a while and then just fell flat.

The beginning was great. Prague is such an inspired location and the perfect setting for mystery and darkness and intrigue. Brimstone's teeth-for-wishes shop that Kaoru was an errand girl for was weird but strangely homey (maybe because it was where Kaoru grew up for a bit). And the doors that opened to exotic locales around the world (the better to collect teeth, my dear) is the kind of magic that pulls at something intrinsic in the soul (who doesn't want to open a door and instantly be able to escape to another place?).

And Taylor perfectly built up the suspense. I craved answers to all the mysteries that abounded – what are the damn teeth for? Why are the angels leaving burning handprints on Brimstone's doors? Who is Karou and why is she so special?

But all that potential gets thrown over for some weepy love tragedy. I just cannot invest in Kaoru and Akiva. It is sappy beyond sappy and just too on-the-nose Romeo & Juliet for me, complete with insta-love (and, yeah, maybe Akiva attacks Kaoru at first sight - thinking (accurately) that she's Brimstone's minion - but he just bring himself can't kill her because there's something about her).

The revelation about who Kaoru is and why Akiva just loves her so much he can't help himself was, I felt, beyond lame. And made me like the book less. And made me like Kaoru/Akiva as a couple less. And led to a completely unexpected change in point-of-view that totally threw me and brought me out of the book as effectively as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over me.

And I get really, really annoyed by wide-eyed idealists who think they can save the world using nothing but love. Past Akiva thought that he could put an end to a millenia-long war through falling in love with a girl on the other side. I WONDER WHY THAT DIDN'T WORK OUT. It's like if the Israel-Palestine conflict was resolved solely through the love story of a Palestinian and Israeli couple. Maybe, maybe Past Akiva was going to come up with a concrete plan for some kind of counter-movement just as soon as he stopped staring into his beloved's eyes, but as far as he actually got was, "Hey! This girl is hot and I love her! And she's the enemy! Why are our people killing each other? If only people realized that such a love was possible, the war would be over!"

Even the beauty of Taylor's prose could not save this book from the overly melodramatic romance plot. Sigh, at least I will always have the first half. And at least this book had Brimstone (who was awesome, but criminally underused). ...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Alyssa rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club

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