Laini Taylor can string words together like pearls, her paragraphs glittering like diamonds on black velvet. She builds landscapes out of the ether an Laini Taylor can string words together like pearls, her paragraphs glittering like diamonds on black velvet. She builds landscapes out of the ether and births characters of blood and solidity. When I read her I am a woman possessed -- consumed, enchanted and enthralled. I am a child, gripped by a child's wonder and insatiable hunger for stories. I am in love with this woman and her pink hair and beautiful, crazy mind (where I would live if it were only possible).
What kills me is that some of the most heart-stuttering gorgeous prose I've ever read is to be found hiding behind some truly awful, misleading covers. It's amazing to me that Laini Taylor's fledgling, phenom writing career hasn't been completely sabotaged by the cover art chosen on her behalf.
Take this book for instance: the first cover is ... adequate, yet still terribly misleading of content and themes, while the second is just plain bad. Quite frankly, it stinks -- a Twilight-ish, vampish, Fifty Shades of Lipstick embarrassment.
[image] [image]
That's just one example. Then came along the cover for Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Seriously? Try convincing someone that they MUST read this book working only with that confused and stupid cover.
Despite being constantly cover-challenged, Laini Taylor is blazing a permanent mark on the literary trail traveled by unique and intrepid storytellers. In the Author's Note, Ms. Taylor describes herself this way:
Like a magpie, I am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales, dead languages, weird folk beliefs, fascinating religions, and more.
I, for one, cannot wait to find out about the and more....more
Blistering, savage, dark and complex -- this sequel lives on the very hinterlands of YA fantasy -- a rare jewel of flawless intensity. It is a mature Blistering, savage, dark and complex -- this sequel lives on the very hinterlands of YA fantasy -- a rare jewel of flawless intensity. It is a mature read dealing with very adult themes -- war, vengeance, brutality, racism. We have seraphim and chimaera slaughtering each other for a millennium. Their hatred of each other knows no end. Their children are born into it, are raised on it, are sent out into the world willing to kill and die for it.
There is an unrelenting, gripping reality to this war that resonates with us as humans. We've seen such devastation over and over again in our own time, in our own world. Hatreds and prejudices that run so deep it fuels wars of unimaginable destruction, campaigns of genocide that unleash hell upon the earth and leave our humanity heaving and dying in the rubble. [image] Karou's life has become more complicated and fraught with peril than she could ever have imagined in the days before the snap of her magic wishbone when all of the hidden knowledge of her past life as Madrigal was restored to her. She is an orphan, bereft without her chimaera caregivers, who must wade into the murky and bloody waters of resurrection without the wise and benevolent presence of her beloved Brimstone. Karou has been betrayed beyond comprehension, and finds herself aligning with the beast who once sought to destroy her -- the White Wolf. If she is to avenge her family, if she is to save her kind from extinction, she will have to bend to the Wolf's will. For what choices are left to her but that one?
There is such richness to this story and in many ways it is a very different book from its predecessor. When we first get to know Karou, she is young and innocent. Her world is one of art, friendship, laughter and adventure. Her discovery is our discovery. It is gradual, gripping and mysterious. It unfolds like a magnificent flower, unlocking like the most intricate puzzle box. It is intoxicating and addictive. The sequel, like Karou herself, leaves behind all childish things. No longer innocent, no longer just a girl, Karou has become an avenger and the book itself necessarily takes a dark turn. It is much more concerned with the shedding of blood and the sundering of flesh, than romance and mystery.
Laini Taylor leaves no stone unturned and no character goes unexplored. Akiva is reunited with his Misbegotten brethren and we discover what his soldier's life is really like. At his side are the only family he has ever known -- Hazael and Liraz. Daughter of Smoke & Bone was Karou's story. Akiva remained almost an unknowable figure of intimidating beauty and inconceivable strength. This sequel becomes just as much Akiva's story as it is Karou's. We finally get to know his thoughts and fears and dreams -- "A dream dirty and bruised is better than no dream at all." Akiva cannot relinquish the hope he found with Karou. It has lit a fire within him to end the ceaseless slaughter, to forge a lasting peace, to atone for his numerous sins. And he will do this without Karou for the crevasse that separates them is vast and insurmountable.
We've moved away from the tangled streets of Prague and find ourselves camped out in a sandcastle in the Moroccan desert. When we aren't there, we are in the land of seraphim as they hunt, and slaughter, civilian chimaera by day. Despite the bleak, Shakespearean tragedy of it all, there is still humor to be found and pangs of hope still linger.
I am profoundly in love with this tale, with this world and war that Laini Taylor has created, and who she has populated it with. It has held me rapt and left me hungering for more. A genuine physical ache to know what happens next.
One world on its own is a strange enough seethe of coiling, unknowable veins of intention and chance, but two? Where two worlds mingle breath through rips in the sky, the strange becomes stranger, and many things may come to pass that few imaginations could encompass.
I wanted to read this gorgeous book again before the sequel's November release, and went with the audio version just to hear the sumptuous prose aloud I wanted to read this gorgeous book again before the sequel's November release, and went with the audio version just to hear the sumptuous prose aloud. Laini Taylor's epic narrative has swept me up in its arms and carried me away for a second time, despite knowing all of its secrets. I just lost my mind over this book when I read it last year, and I didn't think it would be possible to recapture that initial gush of adoration, but here it is. I'm completely ga-ga all over again.
The fabric of this story is conjured up out of the very elements themselves -- air, fire, earth, and water. And love. For love is an element. The real love story for me here is not shared between Karou and Akiva -- star-crossed lovers of mythological proportions -- but rather Karou and Brimstone. Ah, Brimstone. You are fierce and a monster in the eyes of many, but to Karou you are protector, mentor, father. You may have the head of a ram, but you have the heart of Atticus Finch. You are righteous and wise and honorable. You carry the burden of your dark magic on your broad shoulders so that your Chimera race may survive against the onslaught of the Seraphim, but deep in your soul you carry hope, for the future, for peace. For who else but the Wishmonger can truly know the power of hope over mere wishes?
This second time around I am truly dazzled by the rich world-building Taylor gives us, all wrapped in her sensuous prose. Her imagination is boundless, her ability to show remarkably vivid. (view spoiler)[The land of Elsewhere, the Chimera life and its legends and magic. Brimstone the Resurrectionist, using stolen, ill-gotten teeth to craft new bodies to hold the souls of the dead within them to live again as revenants. The Seraphim -- warrior angels of utter perfection, as beautiful as they are cruel, blinded by arrogance and a steel determination to bend the Chimera to their will. The conquered and the conquerors, the Chimera monsters and the Seraphim angels locked in a 1000 year old battle of poisonous hatred, mistrust, exploitation, humiliation. It is slavery, colonialism, invasion, conquest. It is terrorism and freedom fighter. (hide spoiler)]
And Karou. Sweet, soul-searching Karou. With your blue hair and unanswered questions. Who are you? What are you? You ache for answers, and when they arrive they rip your world to pieces and tear away all that you have come to know and love. My heart breaks for you. But I hope. I hope that all is not lost.
***Original review -- November 2011*** Once upon a time, an angel lay dying in the mist. And a devil knelt over him and smiled. ~Daughter of Smoke and Bone (2011)
So. Much. Love. for this book I don’t know even know where to begin. Let me start by saying how happy it made me, how much pleasure I soaked up from each and every page. A lot of this I'm sure has to do with my healthy obsession with Angel lore (and not the airy-fairy, sparkling emo-kind, but the towering, frightening, blood-soaked other-wordly soldiers, beautiful in their grace, terrifying in their mercilessness).
One of my favorite films is The Prophecy (1995) starring Christopher Walken (and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer!). This movie captures exactly what is so awe-inspiring about warrior Angels:
Did you ever notice how in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone or ... needed a killing, he sent an Angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an Angel?
Laini Taylor’s angels are not part of a familiar Christian tradition, but nevertheless are recognizable as creatures of iconic, staggering beauty, mystery and grace (and always with one wing dipped in blood). They are ruthless, unthinking, unfeeling, arrogant in their righteousness, cruel in their certainty.
In other words -- awesome.
In this epic fantasy of worlds colliding, magic, fire, a thousand year war, deep hatreds and monstrous creatures, Taylor weaves a spell on her reader that is truly irresistible. I was enchanted, enthralled, and totally swept up and away -- giddy, delirious, and greedy, never wanting the story to end.
There is so much emotion and pain contained in the pages, so much fear, and love and hope that it will squeeze your heart, make your pulse race and your fingers grip the book for dear life. Part of the magic is Laini Taylor’s GORGEOUS prose. If ever a book deserved to sit on a shelf entitled “prose that sings” it is this one. In one of my updates I compared Taylor’s words to precious stones or black velvet – you will want to drape yourself in them. I know I did. I can’t wait to listen to the audiobook version just so I can hear those words read aloud.
I’m floundering now, and rambling, so I will leave you with READ. THIS. BOOK. Read it!!!...more
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