Book review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Seventeen-year-old Karou attends art school in Prague and trying her best to balance her almost normal life with running, sometimes dangerous, errands for a wishmonger named Brimstone. Karou has always been honest about her other not-so-normal-life, she draws everything she sees but it is so incredible that her friends think she has a very vivid imagination.

The truth is that Karou grew up in Brimstone's shop, among demons. She loves her little demon family but at the same time she has always felt that lonely, hollow ake inside without knowing why.

Suddenly Brimstone's supplies of teeth are almost empty and black hand prints is on every doorway that leads to the shop, that can't possibly be a good thing.

Continue further down to read a mad girl raving on about Daughter of Smoke and Bone, it just blew me away! 

My thoughts:
I've been fortunate enough to read a couple of books lately that have received a lot of great buzz in advance but I somehow failed to see what was so great about the stories. Well I'm glad to say that I've found a book that deserves all the praise it is getting and more! I won't be saying much about the story in this novel because this is a book I believe will be best experienced without knowing all that much about the story in advance.

Author Laini Taylor has created a fantasy that I have yet to read anything similar too. It has humor, warmth, passion and at times it may threaten to break your heart a little. The world building is so rich and vivid without it ever getting boring, no info-dumping here. Every little sentence in the story had its meaning, no unnecessary jibber-jabber. Laini managed to surprise me with the direction the story went as I turned the pages, this was such a treat I cannot believe the amount of imagination a person must have to write this kind of story.

The main character, Karou, is a strong heroine, she is both good and bad, she is tough yet she is vulnerable. Make no mistake Karou is no damsel in distress. There was something to enjoy in each and every one of the other characters as well, they were all masterfully crafted and I kept wondering who the evil ones really were.

I can't wait to see where the story goes next, I'm patiently waiting for a sequel (I don't want to stress the author even though my insides are screaming for it LOL).

Book trailers(a must see, they are both amazingly good!):

Cover:
It's growing on me and I've heard the finished copies is going to have foiling effects to be extra special. I'm going to have to buy it!


My rating of this book:

- AWESOME!

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Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Release date: September 29th 2011
Pages(paperback): 448
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 144472262X (ISBN13: 9781444722628)
Full disclosure: Review copy from publisher.

This book can be purchased from a number of local retailers and on-line book stores such as Amazon or The Book Depository (I'm not an affiliate of either). The latter store does by the way have free shipping to about 100 countries.