Must Read Monday: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Must Read Monday is a meme hosted by Jen from What's on the Bookshelf to showcase a book or series (old or new) that we recommend.



Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter od Smoke and Bone #1) by Laini Taylor 
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Published: September 27, 2011
Source: ARC from BEA 2011
Amazon: Daughter of Smoke and Bone | goodreads
Author: Blog | Twitter

Summary:

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?

Why you must read it:
I've had Daughter of Smoke and Bone sitting on my shelf for almost a year. Everyone kept telling me that I MUST read this book but I was reluctant. I've learned not to get get caught in the hype machine. I rarely love what everyone else is raving about.

I'm glad I waited on this one. Not because it's not good. Quite the opposite. But because it has a slow meandering style that takes a while to build. I might have rebelled against the hype and given up back then and that would have been a shame. Laini Taylor's writing teases the senses, revealing small glimpses of magical worlds and characters with an astonishing number of layers.

By the time the plot really starts to thicken I was salivating to know more.

When I finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone I realized I've read this basic plot a dozen times before and hated it; forbidden, transcendent love, warring worlds but it was written in such a beautiful, wholly original way. This is a world of Angels and Chimaera, death and hope, beauty and ugliness and magic portals to worlds Elsewhere. I guarantee that you haven’t read anything like it before.

The book isn't perfect. Just when you're swept up into one storyline, Taylor will take a detour into past lives, myths & legends, but your patience will be richly rewarded as all these seemingly unrelated passages collide into an ending that will have you on the edge of your seat begging for the sequel: Days of Blood and Starlight.

Quotes:

“But there was no help for it’s emptiness; its closed air was stirred by no breath but her own. When she was alone, the empty place within her, the missingness as she thought of it, seemed to swell.”

“It was like stepping into the pages of a book – a book alive with color and fragrance, filth and chaos – and the blue-haired girl moved through it all like a fairy through a story, the light treated her differently than it did for others, the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her.”

“Love is a luxury”  “No. Love is an element.”
”An element. Like air to breathe, earth to stand on.”

Do you have a must read book recommendation for me?