Book Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

See this cover? This is a nice cover. I like this cover.

From Goodreads:

Around the world, black hand prints 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?

In this particular case, it's more than appropriate that I start the review with a Goodreads description, as it was on Goodreads that almost all my friends recommended this book to me. Given the sterling recs I'd been given, when the birthday B&N gift-cards came around, it was a no-brainer to pick this one up. I'm thrilled to say I wasn't disappointed.

The Good:

The writing, as promised, was beautiful. Taylor has a way with words that makes you want to wallow in them, without succumbing to overly ornate purple prose. Writing like this makes me think of foods - maybe my mom's fruit parfaits - which are delicious and I can enjoy them everyday, guilt-free. Okay, yes, Laini Taylor writes like my mom's fruit parfaits. Let's go with that.

The world is enthralling. The more I read, the more I wanted to know. Even had I hated the story, I would probably read the rest of the series just so I could know more about how everything worked. Luckily, the story is pretty cool. The mechanics for the price of magic are maybe not the most original, but they're presented in a way that is fresh and emotionally wrenching. And Taylor's theology - the chimera versus the seraphs -is a delightful twist on familiar religious lore. It makes my theology and cosmology loving heart happy.

Sweet Ceiling Cat, the characters. I love the secondary characters. I want more of all of them. These characters are vibrant and real - at least, as real as secondary fictional characters can be. But you don't have to guess about Brimstone's disapproval or Zuzana's delightfully charming threats of violence and mischief as they are integral to the characters personalities, ascending the realm of 'quirks' to being a part of who that characters is. As for our protagonists....

Karou is perhaps my favorite YA protagonist since Katniss. She's strong and smart, but heavily flawed and we know it. She's self-centered and cruel at times, ungrateful and indecisive. These aren't "I'm so clumsy" traits to make her relatable. These are real, difficult obstacles for her to overcome in herself. But for as awful as they could be, these traits make me like her more. When she's kicking ass, she's not some untouchable Wonder Girl. When she's torn between wanting to hang out with Zuzana while Brimstone is sending her on another extraordinary errand, you can appreciate that she really is just a teenager caught between worlds with absolutely no middle ground. Her complaining and self-centeredness is made sort of forgivable by merit that, while it isn't necessarily harder than any other teenagers life, it is so other that there is no one she can talk to about it. There is no one else like her, no one to understand. At the end of the day she is always alone. Until Akiva.

 I don't know how to feel about Akiva. He feels a little like every romantic interest. I'll leave him up to the interpretation of others and withhold my own judgment until another book.

The Bad:

The writing in the second part fell apart at points. Maybe it's just me, since I haven't seen this complaint elsewhere, but after all the gorgeous, luxurious writing of the first half, certain chapters and scenes in the story of Madrigal seemed almost clinical and detached. It was, in a word, disappointing.

The Rest:

I won't put the romance under The Bad, because honestly, it's one of the best and most believable 'love at first sight' stories I've ever read. But I really wish it hadn't consumed so much of this first book. It felt like the plot had suddenly been jerked hard toward the second star on the right and straight on til morning. It was super dark and then abruptly sunshine and puppies and twu luv! It felt like the romance became its own, almost separate story, tangential to the original plot.

Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it certainly felt that way at times. Probably because I'm the enemy of all romance.

Final Thoughts:

If there isn't more of Brimstone in the next book, I'm going to riot.

The sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight, is due out November, 2012.

Rating 4.5/5 Mushrooms

Book Review: Reckless

Spooky AND pretty! I like it!

For years, Jacob Reckless has been secretly disappearing to another world, a world behind a mirror, a world for which his father abandoned his family. The mirror world is Jacob's escape from reality. It's a place for treasure hunts and magnificent quests. A world where witches haunt the forests and giants and dwarfs roam. A world locked in a deadly war.

Jacob's secret seems safe, until one day his younger brother Will follows him, with disastrous consequence. Faced with a curse that is quickly turning Will to stone, the Reckless brothers are thrust into a race against time to find a cure before Will is lost forever.

Inspired by the Brothers Grimm, master storyteller Cornelia Funke introduces a lush, enchanting world where fantasy meets reality. Reckless is a thrilling adventure, a tale of heroism and loyalty, filled with danger, mystery, and magic--with fairy tales and legends re-imagined as never before. - Goodreads

I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Reckless ever since I saw - and missed my chance to acquire - ARCs at BEA last May. Cornelia Funke is one of my favorite authors and in the first book of this new series, she hasn't disappointed me.

The Good: Funke maintains her well earned reputation for world building, blending European history with an abundance of fairytales, making this new world eerily familiar and frightening. Like the Ink series, Funke has taken a typical tool for crossing into new worlds - in this case, a mirror - and made it her own, wrapping it in its' own mystery.

One of my favorite tricks from Cornelia Funke is how she lets us into the minds of the major players, and even some of the side ones, to help reveal motivations and back stories piece by piece. I loved how she did it in the Ink World Series, and it's no less effective in Reckless. Everyone has their own voice and their own small but crucial part to play, and Funke let's us see the world through their eyes. It's confusing sometimes, but it pays off in establishing the roles and species of the characters, and the world through their eyes.

The story unveils slowly, but compellingly. While I enjoyed the first couple of chapters, I didn't realize how deeply I was hooked until I tried to put it down. It's a long book, which can get irritating if, like me, you've got a lot of other books to read. But it's a surprisingly quick read for its size, and I've been quietly longing for the next book since I finished it months ago.


The Bad: I have no idea when the sequel is coming out and I need it like Emma needs Nutella.

The Rest: Cornelia Funke's writing style tends to lean slightly towards info dumps, but 1) I kind of like info dumps if they're done well, and 2) Cornelia Funke can write good info dumps. Be warned, this is the first book in a series, so if you just want a stand alone book to wallow in before putting it down and moving on, hold off on this one.As a reader, I was drawn into the characters just enough to become invested in their futures and intrigued by their pasts and mysteries, but the book drops off just as those mysteries become even more devious and compelling.

Final Verdict: If you like fantasy and cliff hangers, this is a book for you. If you don't like cliff hangers, wait for the rest of the series to be published and then lose yourself in another fabulous Funke world.

Rating: 4.5/5 Mushrooms

Of Laptops and Other Toasty Things

My laptop is toast. Crispy, deep fried toast. I mean no battery, no internet, sparks shoot up from the mother board toast. I need marshmellows for this. While this is a bit depressing, where there is toast, there is jam. And Stephen King and Libba Bray have gifted me with finest jam.

Stephen King disses Stephenie Meyer. Like I need anymore reason to love Stephen King.

Going Bovine cover art released!!!! Oh happy day!