{REVIEW} Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

Title: Dreams of Gods & Monsters

Author: Laini Taylor

Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Book: 3

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Blurb from Goodreads:

By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz.

Common enemy, common cause.

When Jael's brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people.

And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love.

But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz ... something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world.

What power can bruise the sky?

From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy. 

At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?

My Rating/Thoughts:

“Once upon a time,an angel and a devil pressed their hands to their hearts

and started the apocalypse.” 

I am going to start by saying this book was a monster! 613 pages of glorious writing that made my heart shrivel up from heartbreak and expand 20 sizes bigger because AVIKA AND KAROU♥♥♥♥♥

Seriously, it was that fantastic. It did take me a while to get into because for a while I just felt like nothing was really going on. There was a lot of building up and I just had to force myself to read. I think the problem I usually have is when authors will introduce new characters and give their perspectives and it takes me a while to get used to them. I don't know this person. I don't know their story and I don't care about them right now. 

But let's talk about the plot first (because I could write my own novel about the characters alone). The plot of this story was pretty good. I looovvvvveeedddd that the seraphim and chimaera finally came together to defeat Jael! YAAASSSSS! However. I didn't like how this whole "plan" kept getting hinted at and it really wasn't anything too special. Avika just burned a handprint into Jael and threatened to ignite it unless he left Earth with no weapons? Okay. That's a little anticlimatic. I was waiting for this huge brawl to finally take down Jael and his army, but I guess I was still satisfied. I also enjoyed that we saw more of the Stelians and the origin of sirithar. That was actually a little surprising (Poor Akiva). 

"It was not a happy ending, but a happy middle-- at last, after so many fraught beginnings."

Overall, this story was satisfying and I am beyond joyed that I got my happily ever after for Akiva and Karou! Seriously guys, their love is awesome sauce! They have the kind of love that everyone should strive for. I was in love with Avika. I was in love with Karou just reading Akiva's perspective. I felt it! I wanted it just as badly. Their glances! Their longing! GAH IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL! *cries*

“But let's not be casual about this body, okay?" She nuzzled him back. "It may be your soul that I love, but I'm pretty keen on its vessel, too."

And what I really, really, really liked about this book was how love was based on your soul. Karou fell in love with Akiva's soul, and vice versa. It doesn't matter what you look like, love only cares for your soul and who you are. The fact that Liraz could fall in love with Ziri despite the fact that he was chimaera was beautiful. I love this message and it makes me all giddy! 

Now as for the characters, Laini Taylor really knows how to make you fall in love with every single character she writes about. Except Thiago because seriously who needs him? But I loved them all! Karou, Akiva, Zuzanna, Mik, Ziri!!!, Even tough-exterior-Liraz, Issa, Hazael. Everyone! 

“You are a conniving, deceitful hussy. I stand in awe." 

"You're sitting."

"I sit in awe.” 

I loved Karou and Zuzanna's friendship so much. I loved that she wanted to help Karou and it actually tore her apart because she couldn't stay and help her friend. Their exchanges were just so beautiful that I would tear up here and there because they are amazing.

Even Zuzanna and Mik had a beautiful relationship. I loved how geeky and brave Mik was. And romantic! This guy! Let me tell you. The fact that he would not propose to Zuzanna unless he performed 3 heroic acts was so heartwarming. They joked around with each other so much that it was so cute and then when Mic would act on those jokes to make Zuzanna happy? Awwww! (:

I am currently now in a book hangover because I just loved this world so much. I love Laini Taylor for writing just a great fantasy trilogy that was so unlike anything I've read before. I loved the world she built with their legends. Now I will forever be looking up to the sky looking for my own portal to Eretz (:

{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} My True Love Gave to Me Edited by Stephanie Perkins

Title: My True Love Gave to Me
Author: Stephanie Perkins, Holly Black, Ally Carter, Matt de la Pena, Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Myra McEntire, Rainbow Rowell, Laini Taylor, Kierstan White
Editor: Stephanie Perkins
Rating: ★★★★

Blurb from Goodreads:
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ...This beautiful collection features twelve gorgeously romantic stories set during the festive period, by some of the most talented and exciting YA authors writing today. The stories are filled with the magic of first love and the magic of the holidays.

My Rating/Thoughts:

I loved this book so much. It was exactly what I was wanting and I had so much fun reading it. The stories were cute and cheesy and made me smile. Only thing that bothered me were some of the stories did actually disappoint me and I felt like they just didn't belong, but I still love this book so I will have to read this every Christmas!

Without further adieu, let's get started!

Midnights by Rainbow Rowell: ★★★★★

“I need you to be my person. I need to see you. And hear you. I need you to stay alive. And I need you to stop kissing other people just because they're standing next to you when the ball drops.” 

I LOVED THIS STORY SO SO SO MUCH! This was so cute and I loved the way it was written and the romance was perfect. I loved that they were best friends for years and that friendship turned into love. Now I know why this was such a fan favorite and like many others, I WANT A WHOLE NOVEL!

“You're a kaleidoscope. You change every time I look away.” 

The Lady and the Fox by Kelly Link: ★

"She knows, every part of her knows, that she wants to kiss him. That he wants to kiss her. All of her skin prickles with longing. Her insides fizz."

This story was so weird. I just did not like it at all  and I found myself just skimming through it because I was so confused. The romance just felt so awkward and unbelievable.

Angels in the Snow by Matt de la Pena: ★★★

“The feeling it gave me was an odd combination of weightless self-pity and excitement. I understood my life was meaningless, and this knowledge freed me up to accomplish absolutely anything.” 

I really liked this story a lot. I felt that it was a little more believable and the romance felt a little unrealistic, but I could totally see this being a little cheesy Holiday ABC family movie. I really liked it. I liked that the characters got to know each other and spent time together. It was a little rushed, but hey it's a short story so what do you expect?

Polaris Is Where You'll Find Me by Jenny Han: ★★★1/2

This story was entirely way too short. I wanted more! Way more. Just when I settled into the story it was over! But I still enjoyed it. I think it should have been longer because it ended so abruptly and it was a little unclear where the story was supposed to go. I had no idea how to even imagine my own ending because I just don't know the direction!

It's a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown by Stephanie Perkins: ★★★★★

“Shame leads to secrets, and secrets lead to lies, and lies ruin everything.” 

Stephanie Perkins is perfect and everything she writes is perfect too. This story is definitely in my top 2. I loved everything about it. I loved Marigold. I loved North. Where can I get a North? I loved the story and how it flowed. The only thing that I had a problem with is that it ended ): I wanted to know what her mom thought of the Charlie Brown tree and the apartment! I want to know what happens to Marigold and North! Sigh I just loved it.

"The rareness, the specialness, of North. Of this night. She wished it could last forever." 
So did I.

Your Temporary Santa by David Levithan: ★★

 "He says presents aren't important, but I think they are- not because of how much they cost, but for the opportunity they provide to say 'I understand you.” 

This was so depressing. The main character spends the whole story talking about how he doesn't belong. We learn that his boyfriend's family doesn't even know about him and so when he comes in and plays this Santa so that Connor's little sister will still believe in Santa, he is struck by how much he doesn't belong. What a little downer. I just didn't like this story at all. It was weird that this is supposed to be a "romance" where we didn't even see the romance at all.

“I am here, and he is here, and everything I need to know is that I will hold him and he will hold me until I am warm again, until I know I belong." See? No.

Krampuslauf by Holly Black: ★★

“Sometimes I felt like I was waiting for my life to begin and more than anything, in that moment, I wanted to force some kind of beginning. I wanted things to be different than usual. I wanted to bend reality.” 

Another really weird story. I just didn't connect to it at all. This was just too out there for me. I kind of didn't like how the whole story surrounded her friend's secret relationship with her boyfriend and trying to expose him as a liar.

What The Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? By Gayle Forman: ★★★★1/2

Now this one was actually pretty cute. I really liked the humor and the way the story progressed. I just really liked it because it was a short cute love story around likable characters that ended up really understanding each other.

Beer Buckets and Baby Jesus by Myra McEntire: ★★★★

I really enjoyed reading this story as well. I liked that it took place over the duration of a Christmas pageant for the church and it was more believable for our characters to fall into "love" when they already knew each other and had some feelings. It makes everything so much more cute. I enjoyed the flirting and the understanding. We see some character development and it's just a really nice read.

Welcome to Christmas, CA by Kiersten White: ★★★★★

“Christmas Eve is my favorite... I think the anticipation is more fun than anything else. I kind of lost that. The idea that something - food, traditions, an arbitrary date on the calendar - can be special because we decide it should be. We make it special. Not just for ourselves, but for others.”

I loved everything about this story! I think this is another one of my favorites because it was absolutely perfect! It literally brought tears to my eyes. It was believable realistic, cute, and heartwarming. I liked the voice and her sense of humor.

“The door opens with a rusted jingle, and an animatronic Santa insults my moral virtue three times. Ho, ho, ho.” 

 I loved the relationships between Maria (I think her name was Maria, I already don't remember lol) and Ben. Maria spends this whole time thinking that she has no future and wants so badly to get away, but her mother and boyfriend have actually been looking out for her the whole time. I cried. I cried when he learned Spanish so that he could connect to Maria and her mother. I loved how Ben was constantly trying to make food to make other people happy. I loved everything. It was just so sweet and cute. Ben brought some holiday cheer and brightness to the vision Maria had of her home. Such a great story. I want to read more books by Kiersten White now.

Star of Bethlehem by Ally Carter: ★★★★

“I sang because that is what I do when I am happy and when I'm sad. I sang because it is who I am when I am being the best possible version of me.” 

This had a nice amount of suspense to it that had me glued! I had so many questions! Who is Hulda and why doesn't she want to go meet Ethan? What happened? Who was our main character? Why was she running? I am glad at least a couple of them were answered but I still had so many! I thought it was so touching that even though Ethan's family were onto her that she wasn't really Hulda, they still accepted her into their family and wanted her to stay. I could have cried when Aunt Mary asked Liddy to stay with her. It was exactly what she needed. The both of them.

I could see this being a TV movie as well. Actually I'd loved that.

The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer by Laini Taylor: ★

Sigh. I wanted to like this story, I really did, but I just couldn't. It was a little too much like Daughter of Smoke & Bone to me. Spear was just like Thiago in wanting and expecting Neve to marry him, even against her will. And Dreamer just sounded like a chimaera to me. I don't know. This just wasn't a "winter romance" at all. It was a little too awkward. I mean there is nothing wrong with fantasy, but I just wanted something different. We are supposed to believe that Neve really fell in "love" with Dreamer when she never even met him and was only receiving gifts from him on her porch? So much was going on also that I was just a little confused and it made it hard to follow because I ended up not caring. Which is sad because I am currently trying to read Days of Blood & Starlight by Taylor and thought that this story would be great, but it just felt like I was almost reading the same thing with different names and setting.

{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? (: