163) Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

The Blurb :

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages - not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers - beautiful, haunted Akiva - fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

My Thoughts :

I had only heard amazing things about Daughter of Smoke and Bone and decided to listen to the audio book as I knew a copy of the book would end up gathering dust somewhere. As it was I am pretty sure I wouldn't have read even a quarter of the book. I am extremely surprised I didn't turn off the audio and delete it after the halfway mark. I really didn't care what happened next but with so many glowing reviews I held out till the end with the hope that something would happen to make me say 'wow'. Nothing did.

The location may seem exotic to most readers but for someone like me who has been to Prague and lives in Europe I just found it boring. Same old. The premise, at the beginning, had me extremely interested and excited. It actually started off with some great character and world building but it also left me confused and unsure. Who was Karou really and why didn't she know? Who was Brimstone and all those strange creatures that Karou just accepted? She came across as too la de da I don't care. So I didn't either.

When things really started to happen and it looked like answers were going to be offered it all went slightly pear-shaped. Maybe it was the narrator or the way the book was written but I couldn't keep track of who was who and what was what. The story totally seemed to go off track and I found things started to drag on and on. I had a sense of deja vu a few times throughout the second half of the book and I am pretty sure it was a repeat of the first half but just told from a different perspective/person.

All in all this was all about star-crossed lovers and there were some angels and stuff thrown in for the ride. It could have been a lot better but then again it could have been a lot worse. I believed the hype and tried this one but it seems I am one of only a few who didn't think this book was the best thing since forever. I won't be checking out the rest of the series and didn't feel close enough to the characters to want to know what happens next.