Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1) in read with Marines

Jan 04, 2012 Mari rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-reads-of-2012, fantasy, finished-series, 2017, 2021, favorites-of-all-time

My original rating of this on first read was 5 stars. I bumped it down to 4.5 after second read. After fourth read, it's back up to 5 lol

Daughter of Smoke and Bone may enjoy the benefit of being one of the last things I'll read in 2012, perhaps standing out so much to me by virtue of comparison. But also, it is a unique, beautifully written story with characters I felt for page after page.

I liked our heroine, Karou from page one. I didn't know that it was possible in YA anymore, but as the star ...more

34 likes · Like · see review

Oct 06, 2011 Antonia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own, favourites

What an astonishing roller coaster, what a journey!

To begin with, I must admit that I began reading this book with high hopes and expectations, because each and every one of you surely knows how well-known this trilogy is to a vast amount of people. I had read that Laini Taylor's writing is both beautiful and bizarre, but the worlds she builds with her words feel so real and her characters pulsate with life and potential and amazement. I wasn't disappointed to the slightest extent.
So, as you'll What an astonishing roller coaster, what a journey!

To begin with, I must admit that I began reading this book with high hopes and expectations, because each and every one of you surely knows how well-known this trilogy is to a vast amount of people. I had read that Laini Taylor's writing is both beautiful and bizarre, but the worlds she builds with her words feel so real and her characters pulsate with life and potential and amazement. I wasn't disappointed to the slightest extent.
So, as you'll have surely understood, I really loved this book. I loved the writing, the description of Prague and all the supernatural elements. I adored Karou and I am head over heels in love with Akiva. What a tormented and forbidden love story, what an extravagant plot with twists and turns that made my heart accelerate and melt and start beating all over again. The structure that Laini Taylor chooses to give birth to her characters on, is one of the prettiest and most special bases I've ever seen in a book. Every word has a meaning, and every meaning is hidden behind another meaning. Poetry is married with literature in this novel, and their "child", the story that is born, is one that can't be easily forgotten.
Overall, 4 out of 5 stars, or maybe 4.5 out of 5. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars was the fact that it kind of annoyed me how Zuzana so easily believed everything that Karou told her about the supernatural world. It didn't feel believable, it felt rushed and forced. But this and only this was the only disadvantage of this book. Everything else was pure stardust. The characters, especially Karou and Akiva of course, are so well developed, and they've got so much life and character and emotion in them, that I could easily feel my heart explode while reading this story. The world is so spectacularly built, even when I've got so many questions unanswered and all I want is to finish writing this review and start reading the second book of the trilogy. The story is rich, mysterious, mind-blowingly good, action-packed and full of romance and life, and the way that everything is so intricately woven together and delivered to the readers is the path that masterpieces take when they want to be remembered by their watchers. Laini Taylor has made me deeply love her writing and her characters and all I can say is that you must stop whatever you're doing and you must go and read this book as soon as possible. It's a love story that will make you melt and cry and hope but, above all, it will make you question the existence of fate and betrayal, and how there isn't really Good and Evil, but just different sides of the same coin, different paths that ultimately and irreversibly lead to the same destination. ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Jan 07, 2012 Diana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommended-to-all, fantasy, paranormal

I re-read this after a few years and it holds up as one of my favorite YA fantasy books. I love the way Taylor incorporates old mythologies with truly unique expansions and twists on them, creating something new entirely that still feels a bit familiar. It's high concept and has some wildly original world building. It creates a world that is capricious with kindness and cruelty, hope and despair. I particularly enjoy the prose and the way it winds like smoke around the pages and into your head a ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Oct 23, 2011 Danielle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: love-love-love, i-like-it-like-it, that-s-what-i-m-talking-about, so-good-it-should-be-illegal, thank-god-this-was-published

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, what can I say about this book except for I loved it. I have this problem with being able to articulate what I hate about a novel better than what I loved, so I'm going to fix that starting with this review.

This book, it definitely has some of the elements of typical YA literature these days with the whole extremely hot guy, the orphan girl, the angels. It's possible to not like this book, especially hearing that, but here is why you should read it:

It is an intelligen Daughter of Smoke and Bone, what can I say about this book except for I loved it. I have this problem with being able to articulate what I hate about a novel better than what I loved, so I'm going to fix that starting with this review.

This book, it definitely has some of the elements of typical YA literature these days with the whole extremely hot guy, the orphan girl, the angels. It's possible to not like this book, especially hearing that, but here is why you should read it:

It is an intelligently, well written book.

I loved the characters in this novel. Not only did it have great lead characters, it had great secondary characters. Even if you didn't like Karou(though it's kind of hard not to) you will love Zuzana, there are characters you can root for. And Akiva is awesome, I love him. Even though he ROYALLY screwed up, I can't be mad at him. I just can't. Also, AKiva is NOT a fallen angel, and the fallen angel that is there makes more sense in the appearance of fallen angels in other novels written about the subject. Razgut was bloated, broken, and ugly, he fell from heaven for Christ's sake, that's a really long fall, plus his wings were ripped from his body. Laini Taylor has some logic, cause when I read some of the descriptions of Patch or Daniel it didn't make sense they'd come out looking good after a fall like that, and since our God is a jealous GOd, he definitely would've ripped their wings off. That's one reason why I can't read those books, they make no sense.

Anyway, I loved the world she created, and how she developed the chimaera and their battle tactic was extremely intelligent. This story was so well written I applaud Laini Taylor. And her prose was something I really loved. I love the way she writes, I'm so envious. It's written in 3rd person limited, mostly to Karou but sometimes in Akiva's POV. And I love the twist at the end, I love it, it was great and it was clever. We found out alot in this novel than I would've expected, and the way it ended, oh it's not over. I can't wait to read the rest of this series. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 10, 2014 Emma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, urban-fantasy, paranormal, 2015-read, 2021-read

Weird and wonderful and well paced, I found myself falling in love with a city I've never visited (Prague) largely due to Laini Taylor's evocative prose. I felt like I could get lost in the labyrinthine cobbled paths that wind their way through history and myth and maybe even magic. I could almost feel the heat and the noise and the bustle of Marrakesh along with Karou. It's been some time since a book has actually managed that, and I will say that people weren't wrong when they said the writing ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2012 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2014-reads

This is one of the only YA books I've read in the past few months where I have LOVED the main character. Karou is a badass and funny and cool and everything I want in a heroine. I loved the supporting characters, and the incorporation of art, and visualizing what Karou's family looked like.

For some reason, right after I finished this, I didn't immediately read the second book and I'm not sure why because I really liked this one. I think my issue is just that it look SO LONG to get from point A ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 03, 2012 Stephanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: paranormal-etc, scandalous, angels-demons, girl-is-a-bamf, love-love-love-it, ya-strong-language, gorgeous, brotp, owned

Now, I know I have been pretty generous with my reviews lately, giving books like Beastly and Fateful (WEREWOLVES. and the TITANIC. Really, Stephanie? *face palm*) four stars just because I enjoyed the feel-good plot or maybe the BAMF characters.

BUT THIS. THIS. The writing. Oh, the writing. It makes me rise in the air and float in warm happy clouds of sparkles and colors. The way it flows, like water running over rocks in a creek in that pleasant way that I wish I could capture and carry around Now, I know I have been pretty generous with my reviews lately, giving books like Beastly and Fateful (WEREWOLVES. and the TITANIC. Really, Stephanie? *face palm*) four stars just because I enjoyed the feel-good plot or maybe the BAMF characters.

BUT THIS. THIS. The writing. Oh, the writing. It makes me rise in the air and float in warm happy clouds of sparkles and colors. The way it flows, like water running over rocks in a creek in that pleasant way that I wish I could capture and carry around with me forever. That illustration was probably more Stephanie than normal, but that's what the experience translates to for me.

Now, with that being said, I can understand how the plot isn't really as full as it could be. Karou and her world is interesting enough. The plot twist was well done enough too (but really, I stayed up a whole hour more than I should have going through that really, really long backstory in the middle of a turning point - just so that I can see the rest as quickly as possible. See that detail where I finished this on April 22? Yes, that was at THREE IN THE MORNING. At least it was a Saturday/Sunday crossover.) My answers to questions were good enough and made me want to re-read the book and fit it all together, but it was given to me in a frustrating way BECAUSE I didn't have time for a backstory, right then. I wanted the "now" please. And as for the aforementioned rest of the plot - well, it was fairly anti-climatic. Left me hanging, but more of in a puzzled way than a nail-biting way.

Akiva wasn't really too interesting, as I just kept imagining a massive football player sized person with fire eyes and a tragic disposition. *Shrug*

And for you people caring, there was a lot of sensuality. Nothing extremely garish, but there are a few male-body-references that I could've lived very happily without and since this is a LOVE story, there was a lot of "and we spent tons of nights together..........."

Awkwardness aside, I just...really enjoyed the writing. And Brimstone is my favorite character. (view spoiler) The end. ...more

Like · see review

May 30, 2014 Olivia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, got-lost-in-the-world, fantasy, romance

Wow. Head and shoulders above most current YA series. The writing is so lovely and enchanting that the book more or less swallowed me up. I admit I didn't read the second half as rabidly, but I still loved it. The flashback/backstory was strange at first, but I rightly knew where it was going (as I assume was intentional) and I loved how it came together. Besides, this is only part one, and I'm very eager to continue.

Not only is this so imaginative, but the Ordinary Girl main character is ditche ...more

Like · see review

Nov 30, 2014 Kayla (Heroic Pages) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2015

I was excited to read this because I have seen this series on so many booktuber's bookshleves, but honestly I was disappointed. The first 138 pages I was intrigued, it was an interesting story the way it was told, but after that it kinda dragged big time for another 130 pages or so and then the rest of the book was one big huge backstory-fest to info-dump with which I was already bored with. I really just wanted to put the book down and give up at the 60% point, but I forced myself to push throu ...more

Like · see review

Dec 30, 2016 Jessica rated it it was ok

2.5

Like · see review

Oct 14, 2015 Leslie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own

I went into this book not knowing a whole lot about what it was about. I really enjoyed this story and immediately downloading the 2nd one onto my audio book app to start listening to it. I need to know what happens next! I found the character interesting and felt that they have a lot of depth to them. This book gave me emotions including yelling, sighing and almost tearing up so that is always a good sign.

Like · see review

Dec 26, 2012 E.E. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, love-stories, young-adult, 2015, 2014, favorites

I can't... wow. So amazing!!!!! And I can't even comprehend the ending right now. my brain is going to need a bit too process. while I'm doing that though, someone can go and get me the second one so I can keep reading! ...more

Like · see review