Tuesday, December 30, 2014

{REVIEW} Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Title: Days of Blood & Starlight
Author: Laini Taylor
Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Book: 2
Rating: ★★★★1/2

Blurb from Goodreads:
Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

My Rating/Thoughts:

“I am one of billions. I am stardust gathered fleetingly into form. I will be ungathered. The stardust will go on to be other things someday and I will be free.” 

First of all: I don't want to be in a world where Akiva and Karou don't love each other. It just can't happen.

“Your heart is not wrong. Your heart is your strength. You don't have to be ashamed.” 

This sequel was so much more compelling. I seriously love this world and want to be a part of it forever. Now I know it took me about a month to read because I was seriously lacking, but I still loved it so much. It had so many twists and turns that made me gasp and to the edge of my seat. I was so surprised and just love Laini Taylor's writing and imagination. All the characters are so great and make you love them so much. *ahem* Ziri, Hazael. And then she just rips your heart out! No spoilers!

“Mercy breeds mercy as slaughter breeds slaughter. We can’t expect the world to be better than we make it.” 

Okay, now I hate alternating POVs. They are the bane of my existence. I mean I get why we have them and we get so much more out of them, but I just hate how quickly they switch and sometimes it takes me out of the story. Taylor does, in my opinion, switch the perspective a little too quickly for my liking. Once I am engaged in the story and what is happening, BAM! NEW PERSPECTIVE. Sigh. But I still loved the different storylines that came together. I was so sad that Akiva and Karou were so distant from each other!! LIKE THEY NEVER EVEN HAPPENED AT ALL! UGH Akiva is just falling into the soldier he is while still trying to preserve the dream he and Karou had, while Karou...well she lost sight of that dream. She feels helpless and allies with the monster of all douchebags Thiago (gah I hate that jerk with every fiber of my being). And it takes her a while to see straight, but once she does...man is it EPIC! I cannot wait to read the final book because Taylor knows how to leave off on a huge cliffhanger!

“It was the worst kind of silence, but a good kind of closeness. These weren't her folk, but...they were, and maybe that meant that anyone could be anyone's, which was a sort of nice thing to think, with the world falling apart.” 

Days of Blood & Starlight  is a great sequel. It's exquisite and I am only saddened that it took me so long to finally finish it.

Would I recommend? Try this fantasy novel. Give yourself a change and give it a chance (:

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