Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor

 

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?

So guess what, boys and girls? I have finally found a book about angels and demons that isn't ridiculous and stupid (The Mortal Instruments don't count; they were great until book four, and then things went seriously downhill super-fast). The trilogy I'm talking about is called Daughter of Smoke and Bone—named for the first book, which is being reviewed right now—by Laini Taylor. Ms. Taylor, you are a genius. I adore you.

 

First of all, I love a particular style of writing that unfortunately, most authors can't pull off. I like other styles of writing, but this is one of my favorites. It doesn’t really have a name, but it's a sort of stream-of-consciousness, lyrical, poetic way of writing that almost paints a picture in my head, like a song almost. I've heard that Jack Kerouac does it in his novel On the Road, and I know Francesca Lia Block does it beautifully (she's where I first ran into the style). And at last, at last, I have found a current, modern author—two, actually, if you count Tahereh Mafi—who do it as well. It's not the same when done by any author, either. Each author has their own way of doing it, and I like Ms. Taylor's way: sparse lyrical-ness amidst stellar wordage. Point one for Laini Taylor.

 

Second, being LDS, I tend to avoid certain things in novels—angels and demons, for one thing; reincarnation; books about killers or mean kids doing mean things and not being punished; extreme violence and whatnot. Yet Daughter of Smoke and Bone takes the whole angel/demon concept, as well as reincarnation, and gives it a spin that makes it LDS appropriate.

 

The angels in this novel are a race known as seraphim, but they're not angels sent by God. They're not divine. They don't come from Heaven. They actually say that, though a few of the nuttier bad guys are like, "Well, the humans think it's true! Maybe it is!" And everyone else is like, "Go home, seraph, you're drunk." Actually, the seraphim are another species that happen to look really cool and have wings that look like light and fire, who come from another world called Eratz. But they're mortal (long-lived, but killable), and their creation story has nothing to do with Judeo-Christian mythos. Point two for Laini Taylor.

 

The demons in DoSaB aren't demons, either. A character named Akiva (a seraph) refers to one specific chimaera as a "devil" because he hates the guy, but that's all. The so-called "demons" are actually a group of different races known collectively as chimaeras that also come from the world of Eratz. They're animalistic humanoids; Madrigal, one of the main characters, has a human face and body but antelope horns and hooves instead of feet. Another chimaera, Yassri, is a woman up top but a snake below the waist. And there are apparently a few chimaera who are just animals, like the raven-esque Kishmish.

 

The chimaera's relationship to the seraphim is similar to the early Native Americans to the white settlers, but with a twist. The seraphim were like, "We'll civilize you. Oh, and by the way, we need to torture you so we can harvest your pain to fuel our magic. Thanks, 'kay, bye." Obviously, rebellion was looming. Rebellion came. Now war rages.

 

Fast forward to the start of the story. We meet Karou, "the wishmonger's daughter." A seventeen-year-old art student (with a douchey ex-boyfriend who won't stop trying to win her back) in Prague by day, she runs errands for a chimaera named Brimstone (the guy who raised her) in her free time. What sorts of errands?

 

She collects teeth. No, Brimstone is not the tooth fairy. For one thing, he refuses to accept the teeth of children. Why? Read the book. But Brimstone is a trader, trading wishes (which come in denominations like money does; from scuppies at the bottom to bruxiels at the top—how creative is that?) to his suppliers for the teeth they give him. And not just human teeth, but animal teeth. As long as they're in good condition, he takes them.

 

And here's where we get into reincarnation that isn't actually reincarnation, just like we touched on demons and angels that weren’t really demons and angels.

 

The chimaeras possess the ability to take over magically created bodies. Their natural form is actually non-corporeal in a way. They have the ability, when their current body falls in battle, to take over another body made for them by sorcerers like Brimstone—from the teeth collected*. It only works with adults (it's a magical technique that requires fierce concentration and force of will) and the bodies they get are created fully mature, and they wake up with their memories intact. Hence why Brimstone doesn’t take child-teeth. So it's not reincarnation, because if there's no magical body prepped, they just die after a few days of floating around without a corporeal form to inhabit. They kind of remind me of a magical version of the Host in Stephenie Meyer's science-fiction novel, who are little aliens requiring a host-body in order to survive.

 

* Apparently every species gives off like, a magical signature. It sticks around even after you die. And sorcerers like Brimstone can extract this species-specific magical energy from the teeth, using it to form the bodies he needs for the chimaeras. So if he had the tooth of an elephant and the tooth of a walrus, the magical signatures would be different, and he could make an elephant body using the elephant energy and a walrus body using the walrus signature. But since chimaeras are mishmashes of animals, they need different teeth for one body. Like, a character in the book who's part antelope, part bat, part human would need teeth from all three of those animals. Apparently gemstones are involved for their specific energies, too, but that's not really explained and it's not really relevant, either, because Karou's job is to collect teeth.
 
 

The book Daughter of Smoke and Bone actually only spans about a week or two, but in that week a lot happens. Basic plot in a nutshell (and beware, it and the rest of this review both contain

 

SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER

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SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERS)

 

A seraph named Akiva and two others are leaving black-scorched handprints on all of Brimstone's portals around the world, closing them off so they can't be used. Brimstone is running out of teeth, but Karou doesn’t know why—and it's important. Akiva senses that he and Karou have a connection, and Karou feels like she knows him from somewhere, but neither of them knows how or why that is. Inside Brimstone's workshop are two doors, one to our world and one to another that Karou is forbidden to go through, and when she does, her entire world falls apart. Mixed into this is the history of Akiva, a seraph soldier who once fell in love with a chimaera, only to lose her. He believes wholeheartedly now that the chimaeras are monsters…but Karou may be able to change his mind.

 

I can't really describe it beyond that little paragraph without giving too much away, but it's a beautiful, entrancing, and twisty novel that made me race through it because I had to know what happened next. It's all about the power of love, how it can transform, heal, or destroy. How sometimes secrets are secret for a reason, and how love without trust can be a two-edged sword. I'm warning you guys now, the end will leave you with your hands over your mouth, making squeaky noises of disbelief.

 

Bonus for this book—the insults you learn from Karou and her friends and family. "Rodent-loaf," for example, is something Yassri the snake-woman says about jerky men. And for the most part, instead of calling guys "a**holes," Karou and her best friend call them "orifices." Though most of the funny insults come from the next bonus (see the paragraph below).

 

Big bonus for the book, as well—Karou's best friend Zuzana is HIGH-larious (“Hey! My body may be small, but my soul is large. It’s why I wear platforms. So I can reach the top of my soul.”). Karou calls her "tiny violent one" because she's short, and she's just a riot. She's also a gifted dancer and artist. Hence why her short story is called "Night of Cake and Puppets," which I want! But it's only available for the Kindle…grrr…

 

So for now, I have Daughter of Smoke and Bone coming in the mail and Days of Blood and Starlight, the second book in the trilogy, from the library and I can't wait until I have a few moments to sit down and get through it, but at the same time, the last book doesn’t come out until April! Funnily enough, it comes out on my birthday. So I won't die a horrible death languishing for the last book to come out, since it'll be here in about three months and two weeks (unlike Oblivion by Kelly Creagh, which doesn’t come out until August!) but I might drag my feet a little with book two just so I don't have such a long wait until book three.

 

All in all, I give Daughter of Smoke and Bone 4.5 out of 5 stars. The only reason I don't give it a full 5 stars is because of the relationship between Karou and Akiva. I want a happily ever after and I don't have one yet! Ms. Taylor, this is not acceptable. Please rectify by book three, if you would be so kind. But that is my only complaint about the entire book. The characterization is impressive and believable, the few bad things done by the good characters are understandable and don't make them evil, the worlds are beautifully crafted, she's clearly done her research about all the different locations in our world, and the whole teeth-wish-bodies thing is waaay creative. Kudos to Ms. Laini Taylor for creating a book series I'm going to love forever!

 

Much love (and brush your teeth!),

 

LA Knight

 

PS — Rather, I'm gonna love it forever unless Karou and Akive don't get together at the end. In which case then I might set my copy of the trilogy on fire and then go die in a hole.

 

Warning — there's brief nudity and off-screen sex.

 

The sex is between Akiva and Madrigal, who are married by chimaera law (if chimaera law applied to seraphs, anyway) because they make love in this one moon-goddess temple for "secret lovers" and that's basically how that works. Which makes it even sadder when the bad guy, Thiago, kills her in front of him. ='(


In Karou's backstory (also off-screen), she gave her virginity to her ex, but now regrets it a lot. Poor thing.

 

As for the nudity, Karou is an art student, and for her life-drawing class, her douchey ex shows up to be the nude model during the first day of the timeline. It's not so much sexual as it is annoying, and she attacks him with scuppies and he runs out after about half an hour. Hehehe.

 

Some beautiful quotes from Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

Karou wished she could be the kind of girl who was complete unto herself, comfortable in solitude, serene. But she wasn't. She was lonely, and she feared the missingness within her as if it might expand and... cancel her. She craved a presence beside her, solid. Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smile like sunshine when he saw her coming. Who would dance with her on her balcony, keep his promises and know her secrets, and make a tiny world wherever he was, with just her and his arms and his whisper and her trust.”

 

--

 

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

 

--

 

The streets of Prague were a fantasia scarcely touched by the twenty-first century—or the twentieth or nineteenth, for that matter. It was a city of alchemists and dreamers, its medieval cobbles once trod by golems, mystics, invading armies. Tall houses glowed goldenrod and carmine and eggshell blue, embellished with Rococo plasterwork and capped in roofs of uniform red. Baroque cupolas were the soft green of antique copper, and Gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels. The wind carried the memory of magic, revolution, violins, and the cobbled lanes meandered like creeks. Thugs wore Motzart wigs and pushed chamber music on street corners, and marionettes hung in windows, making the whole city seem like a theater with unseen puppeteers crouched behind velvet.

 

--

 

She moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.

 

--

 

Happiness. It was the place where passion, with all its dazzle and drumbeat, met something softer: homecoming and safety and pure sunbeam comfort. It was all those things, intertwined with the heat and the thrill, and it was as bright within her as a swallowed star. 

 

--

 

“She had a sadness that was so deep, but it still could turn to light in a second,and when I saw her smile I wondered what it would be like to make her smile. I thought...I thought it would be like the discovery of smiling.”  - Akiva

 

--

 

Until a few days ago, humans had been little more than legend to him, and now here he was in their world. 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 treating her differently than it did others, the air seemed to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place was a story about her.

 

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Other covers for Daughter of Smoke and Bone (and the cover for "Night of Cake and Puppets")!