Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Little, Brown BYR
Publication Date: November 6, 2012
Pages: 517
Format: Hardcover/Own
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?
Review: Ok guys, I hate to say it, but I was a little disappointed by this. I honestly feel like this book suffers from middle book syndrome. While there was a lot of things going on, it felt a lot like side story rather than main plot. I mean, Daughter of Smoke & Bone was magical. There was discovery, mystery, interesting plot points. It was great. I feel like Days of Blood & Starlight was kinda just filler and side story. We see Karou and Akiva split apart, on opposite sides of a war. But nothing really happening with said war.
Karou is being forced/threatened to help Thiago build a Chimera army to take on the Seraphim. Thiago is lying to the Chimera making things sound like Karou is all to blame because she is an angel-lover, for loving Akiva, when he's actually to blame for a lot of things. He's passing the blame onto her and making her untrustworthy to the Chimera. But they also can't get rid of her either since she's their new resurrectionist. While Karou is busy resurrecting the Chimera, she's also deep in wallowing about how she could love the enemy. She feels so much guilt about it, yet she can't deny that she still has feelings for Akiva anyways.
Akiva is back with his Seraph family. His brother Hazael and his sister Liraz. And while they are supposed to be killing Chimera and slaves and those fleeing, he just can bring himself to do it. Akiva is holding onto so much guilt himself for killing so many of Karou/Madrigal's kind/family that he can't bring himself to follow orders anymore. He refuses to kill for the seraph emperor. And his refusal starts to rub off on his brother and then his sister. Eventually all three stop killing and start spreading the word about standing together against the emperor. Akiva is also freaking out because he doesn't even know if Karou is alive.
While I thought Karou and Akiva coming to terms with their guilt and working to stand against their "leaders" was great, it was so drawn out. Most of the book went back and forth with Chimera attacking Seraph and then Seraph attacking Chimera. Karou worrying about which Chimera would come back alive and Akiva finding ways to not kill. This took up so much of the story. It was a bit repetitive at times. Also, the wallowing and guilt got repetitive too. It did not need to be brought up in every other Karou/Akiva chapter. After the first few talks about it, we get the idea about how bad they feel. Like I mentioned above, it felt like a lot of this going back and forth was filler and not really plot driven.
I also didn't see the need for all these side characters that were around for like a chapter or two. They were only there for small bits of story, mostly to explain stuff. We could have easily kept the explaining and how it related much shorter. It was just odd jumping to these random characters just to explain a small piece of information or backstory.
My favorite parts of the story honestly involved Mik and Zuzana. Them figuring out the riddle to where Karou was, going to find her. Zuzana taking a huge interest in Karou's life as a Chimera and actually wanting to help her despite how weird it is. I also just love Mik and Zuzana together. They are so cute. But I really liked that in the midst of everything Karou got to have her friends, and even get to resurrect one she thought was lost forever. It was a bright spot in this dark world she was living in.
It wasn't until the end when Akiva confronted Joram (the emperor) and Jael (his uncle) took advantage of Akiva's plans to rid the Seraphim of Joram that the plot took shape again. We see a story brewing much bigger than Akiva planned for. I was just disappointed it took 3/4 of the story to get the plot moving forward again after the back and forth. But it definitely sets up an interesting story for Dreams of Gods & Monsters. The big mystery for me is how the Stelians fit more into the story. I mean, we get the info about Akiva's mom being Stelian, but that's about it. The mystery surrounding them in interesting.
Karou is being forced/threatened to help Thiago build a Chimera army to take on the Seraphim. Thiago is lying to the Chimera making things sound like Karou is all to blame because she is an angel-lover, for loving Akiva, when he's actually to blame for a lot of things. He's passing the blame onto her and making her untrustworthy to the Chimera. But they also can't get rid of her either since she's their new resurrectionist. While Karou is busy resurrecting the Chimera, she's also deep in wallowing about how she could love the enemy. She feels so much guilt about it, yet she can't deny that she still has feelings for Akiva anyways.
Akiva is back with his Seraph family. His brother Hazael and his sister Liraz. And while they are supposed to be killing Chimera and slaves and those fleeing, he just can bring himself to do it. Akiva is holding onto so much guilt himself for killing so many of Karou/Madrigal's kind/family that he can't bring himself to follow orders anymore. He refuses to kill for the seraph emperor. And his refusal starts to rub off on his brother and then his sister. Eventually all three stop killing and start spreading the word about standing together against the emperor. Akiva is also freaking out because he doesn't even know if Karou is alive.
While I thought Karou and Akiva coming to terms with their guilt and working to stand against their "leaders" was great, it was so drawn out. Most of the book went back and forth with Chimera attacking Seraph and then Seraph attacking Chimera. Karou worrying about which Chimera would come back alive and Akiva finding ways to not kill. This took up so much of the story. It was a bit repetitive at times. Also, the wallowing and guilt got repetitive too. It did not need to be brought up in every other Karou/Akiva chapter. After the first few talks about it, we get the idea about how bad they feel. Like I mentioned above, it felt like a lot of this going back and forth was filler and not really plot driven.
I also didn't see the need for all these side characters that were around for like a chapter or two. They were only there for small bits of story, mostly to explain stuff. We could have easily kept the explaining and how it related much shorter. It was just odd jumping to these random characters just to explain a small piece of information or backstory.
My favorite parts of the story honestly involved Mik and Zuzana. Them figuring out the riddle to where Karou was, going to find her. Zuzana taking a huge interest in Karou's life as a Chimera and actually wanting to help her despite how weird it is. I also just love Mik and Zuzana together. They are so cute. But I really liked that in the midst of everything Karou got to have her friends, and even get to resurrect one she thought was lost forever. It was a bright spot in this dark world she was living in.
It wasn't until the end when Akiva confronted Joram (the emperor) and Jael (his uncle) took advantage of Akiva's plans to rid the Seraphim of Joram that the plot took shape again. We see a story brewing much bigger than Akiva planned for. I was just disappointed it took 3/4 of the story to get the plot moving forward again after the back and forth. But it definitely sets up an interesting story for Dreams of Gods & Monsters. The big mystery for me is how the Stelians fit more into the story. I mean, we get the info about Akiva's mom being Stelian, but that's about it. The mystery surrounding them in interesting.
I really want to read this series. I'll get there sometime. I plan to listen on audio. Anne - Books of My Heart
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty good series. Book 1 is my favorite. I haven't tried the audio of it. You'll have to let me know how it goes!
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