REVIEW: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
As a beloved series of mine, I decided that I must do a reread of it for it’s tenth anniversary and I’m so glad that I did it. I love the series even more than I did before and I didn’t even think that was possible. My Laini Taylor shelf is screaming at me to buy the 10th anniversary American editions as well but we shall see about that. I’m not going to lie here and say that I always get on with Laini Taylor’s writing, because I don’t. Sometimes it’s a bit to flowery for me to get on with, but I found during this reread, that if you don’t get along with her writing, audiobooks are the way to do it. Audiobooks are truly something that I adore in general but this series was a phenomenal set of audiobooks and I highly recommend them.
We meet our main protagonist, Karou as she is at a drawing class. Her ex-boyfriend, Kaz decides that he wants to become a nude model for her class as a way to win her back, but Karou is having none of that. She decides that she wants to make him squirm. She decides that in order to do that, she uses a form of a wish known as a scuppy. She uses the Scuppy to make him itch down there and pretty much all over his body, knowing that he cannot move, she feels such delight in this petty revenge. Karou lives in the human world 90% of the time. The other 10% is in Eretz helping the wishmonger, Brimstone run errands. Brimstone has her run these errands collecting teeth but Karou never knew what exactly they were for.
On one particular errand, she is spotted and stalked by the seraphim Akiva. Akiva almost kills her but doesn’t as he realises something is off about this mysterious girl, he feels like he has seen her before. Karou goes running back to Brimstone and is left asleep by the Chimera who live in this world. Karou really doesn’t know much about Eretz besides what Brimstone and the other Chimera in his shop have told her and she is not to venture outside the shop. But she decides to ignore that ‘advice’ and ventures out. She finds beasts laid out on tables with hamsas on their hands and a world with two moons. Karou is nearly killed again but by the chimera this time, Brimstone comes to the rescue just in time but she is banished from seeing him because of how she disobeyed him. She goes back to the human world left feeling upset and angry.
Karou seeks out her human friend, Zuzanah and tells her everything but Zuzanah has a hard time believing Karou as she has always ‘lied’ about what she was doing, in actual fact, Karou had been telling the truth the entire time but because it was out of the realm of possibility of Zuzanah, she took it as a bunch of lies. When Zuzanah is about to leave, Kishmish, a bird from Eretz flies in on fire and dies in front of their eyes. He has a note with him and the wishbone that Brimstone always used to wear. Knowing that something must have gone on, Karou goes looking for answers.
Akiva finds Karou’s human address from her sketch book left in Brimstones shop and stalks her. Knowing that she is being watched, she leads him into a trap in order to kill him, but when he gets there, he says he only wants to talk to her because there is something peculiar about her. She is a young human woman with hamsas on her hands, it is then revealed what Hamsas actually are, they are for harming the seraphim. She wants answers from him because he seems know a lot about her hamsas and who she is. They start to spend a lot of time together and begin to fall for each other when Akiva sees the wishbone around her kneck. Akiva starts to cry as he knows who she is after all, but they are both interrupted by Akiva’s brother and sister, Liraz and Hazael who are pissed that he is hanging around with a seemingly like chimera. They all start to fight with each other due to Karou’s presence and Akiva tells Karou to run and that she does.
Akiva eventually reunites with an exhausted Karou and tells her that she must break the wishbone and by doing so, she will know her true self once again. They both break the wishbone and it is revealed that Akiva was saved by a young Chimera known as Madrigal and they fell madly in love with each other but were in a Romeo and Juliet type situation, star crossed lovers from either side of a war that had nothing to do with either of them. Unfortunately for both of them, Madrigal’s sister became jealous and told the warlord, Thiago about what was going on between them. Madrigal is executed with no chance of being resurrected as we have now found out, that is what the teeth that brimstone needs is for. Madrigal, when next visited by her sister, forces her soul into that of Chiro’s and frees Akiva from his bonds that Thiago chained him in. Akiva knocks her out and then runs for his life.
The next thing that Karou remembers is breaking the wishbone, it is assumed that Brimstone found a way to get Madrigal’s soul out of chiro and but her soul into a human baby and her memories into a wishbone. Karou realises that she is Madrigal. But unfortunately, there is some bad news to all of this, though Karou looks happy to be reunited with Akiva, Akiva still looks upset. He tells her that he was the one to kill Brimstone as he was living under the assumption that he was the one for Madrigal’s death. This comes to a shock for Karou and runs away from the one person in the world that is alive she truly loved she flies to Eretz and leaves Akiva to dwell on what he did.
Laini Taylor has such a beautiful way of writing. It is simply gorgeous and no other writer’s style will simply compare. I truly love her writing style, though like I have previously stated, it is not one for all people, and even I, somebody who has a dedicated Laini Taylor shelf, sometimes have such a hard time with it. Her writing is very flowery and very description based, and this is why I believe that if you do not get on with that in a written format, then an audiobook for this series is the way to go because I could not recommend this series more than I already have. This reread was truly enjoyable and I can’t wait to review the next book for you guys.
5 out of 5 stars.