{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 (:

{REVIEW} Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Book: 1
Rating: ★★★★

Blurb from Goodreads:

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 grows 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 beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery 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 Rating/Thoughts:

“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. 

It did not end well.” 

Perfect. This book is what I think I have been looking for in a great modern fantasy book. It's filled with a great world that I just didn't want to leave! It's a bit confusing at firsts because there is a lot of world building, but once I got the hang of it and understood everything, it just clicked. Everything made sense and I fell in love. I enjoyed the characters so much. Karou is such an interesting character and I loved her. Akiva is a dangerously sexy angel that you can't help but fall in love with. Once I really got into this book, I couldn't put it down. Even though my head was killing me and I couldn't read anymore, I kept going. I had to finish it.

“Wishes are false. Hope is true. Hope makes its own magic.” 

What was most interesting was the creatures in this novel. There are the "angels" the Seraph, or seraphim, and the Chimaera, the "devils" and they both have such a twist. Both chimaera and seraphim have different legends about how they came to be and it's so interesting to read the different legends in the book. The chimaera also are portrayed a little differently. In this world, they are half human and half various beasts. Reading all the descriptions in the book, I always thought "whoa that sounds so weird."  The book also goes back and forth a lot and it can be a bit confusing, but I think it was a great concept. The author doesn't spell it all out for us and makes it easy. Oh and I loved all the title pages at the beginning of a new part for the book with the feathers and the "Once upon a time..." introductions. It was so cute and really hooked me into the story.

“Once upon a time, an angel lay dying in the mist.

And a devil knelt over him and smiled.”

The magic in this novel had a nice twist as well. In this book, magic comes from pain. Magic has a cost and it was interesting to see how Brimstone would get so upset with Karou using magic on what he perceived as wasteful. I loved his relationship with Karou and Madrigal and how the novel showed that progression backwards. I am not going into too much detail because I don't want to spoil anyone but I will say one thing. One of my favorite small things I loved was how Madrigal would make all her random wishes out loud instead of actually using the scuppies (who wouldn't want a necklace of scuppies to keep around their neck to make wishes? I know I would). My favorite one was "I wish I had blue hair." That was my favorite and made me smile!

“And yet, something tied them together, strong than any of that, something with the power to conduct her blood and breath like a symphony, so that anything she did to fight against it felt like discord, like disharmony with her self.”

I LOVED LOVED LOVED AKIVA AND KAROU!!!! Their romance was so cute! So passionate and unlike any that I have read in the past couple months. I just loved it so much and can't wait to see what happens in the next books. I definitely need to pick the next books up immediately because I am dying to find out what happens next.

Would I recommend? Yes. This is a great fantasy novel and you should read it if you are looking for a different read that has a new world and great romance. I loved it. I mean look at that gorgeous cover? Doesn't that alone make you want to read it? (: