YA Weekend: Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Series: Book 3 of Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (April 8, 2014)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy's Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars 

It’s over! And make no mistake, whatever I may say here about Dreams of Gods & Monsters, it was a good book, and the trilogy as a whole is a series I would heartily recommend. But in terms of expectations, I think I may have placed all my eggs in one basket. I went into this with hopes for the ending of all endings, which is unfair of me perhaps, but I desperately wanted back the magic I first experienced in Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Needless to say, the first book still reigns supreme as my favorite of the trilogy, but that being said, the third book didn't disappoint either. It just didn’t leave me as satisfied as I wanted to be, but I admit I was expecting a lot.

So the war is on in this book, with Jael at the head of the angel army. On the run, Akiva and his seraph sister Liraz have fled to the other side to join Karou, who has taken control of the chimaera rebellion through an impressive feat of deception and pretense. It’s a shockingly suspenseful scenario, considering how at any moment the ruse could be discovered, destroying any chance of a peaceful resolution. Still, at last we see Akiva and Karou fighting on the same side for the same cause against a common enemy.

But as much as it pains me to say, the romance itself isn’t doing much for me anymore. How far Karou and Akiva’s love story has fallen in my eyes, when I look back to my review of the first book and see how weak-in-the-knees I was for their tale of forbidden love. And now? I feel nothing. If I can hazard a guess, I think the second book pushed the melodrama a bit too far. Watching the characters dance around each other going through the motions (and emotions) when you know they’re going to end up back together anyway? Well, that just sort of takes the fun out of it. So Karou and Akiva reconcile in this book, like we’d all known was going to happen. Did they want a prize?

Up until the last few chapters though, and minus my gripes about the romance, this book was in fact quite fantastic. There are multiple plot threads going on, each punctuated by their moments of action and suspense, but also moments of tenderness and humor as well. When Jael’s army of angels first descended to earth, it made for a few incredible chapters where the panic and disbelief practically emanated off the page.

Add to that, we have a new POV character named Eliza, whom I initially thought was introduced for the sole purpose of showing us humanity’s reaction during the aforementioned significant event. As it turned out, she had a bigger role to play as well. I still think Eliza joined us way too late and her part in the overall big picture felt a little forced, given this already cramped storyline. However, I do love her character. I really can’t say much more about her for fear of revealing any spoilers, but she brought a great personality to the story, and that’s saying a lot, considering we already have Zuzana. It goes without saying, Zuze was simply delightful. As always!

Now for the actual ending. I wish I had better things to say about it but the truth is, I thought it carried on for much longer than it should have. Talk about an ending that overstayed its welcome. When all is said and done, the foes are vanquished, friends are reunited, all I wanted to do was bask in the glory of victory and soak up the feel-good vibes. I really could have done without a final bombshell. Especially since it felt like it came out of nowhere. Granted, that stuff usually works like a charm in action movies, and hey, it might work for you. But for me it was mentally exhausting. I would prefer not to feel like that at the end of a book, and especially not at a series-ender.

Don’t get me wrong, though. None of this changes the fact that I think the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy is absolutely fantastic and one of the strongest YA series I’ve ever read. Like I said, I highly recommend these books. And if you’ve enjoyed the first two, there’s no reason at all not to read this too and finish up the saga. Despite minor hiccups here and there, it's a concluding novel well worth your time.

YA Weekend: Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal

Series: Book 2 of Daughter of Smoke & Bone 

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Date of Publication: November 6, 2012

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy's Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars - "Though there is very little of the romance that first drew me in, the story has evolved to something darker and more suspenseful; the writing, as always, is beautiful"

Let's face it. Forbidden love is just like any other kind of love in young adult fiction. A good thing like that hardly ever lasts, at least not without being dragged through seven layers of confused teenaged angst and subjected to overused plot devices that involve mix-ups and misunderstandings. That said, I still really enjoyed this book. But the delicious passion and romance, which is what I loved so much about Daughter of Smoke and Bone, is lost and gone in this sequel, replaced by so much anger and bitterness.

Karou has finally awoken to her true origins, remembering the Chimaera she used to be. She also remembers the angel she once loved, in the world before the war and bloodshed. His people have decimated hers and killed those she loved, and so now she sets her sights on two goals: rebuilding the Chimaera army as their new ressurectionist, and hating Akiva. Meanwhile, the angel in question is wracked with guilt and heartbreak over what he has done to Madrigal/Karou, miserable that he'd found her only to drive her away again. Yet the war rages on, and Akiva must continue fighting for his own side, though not without uncertainty and a lot of doubt for his leaders and their orders.

The story has evolved to focusing on the fighting, politics and conspiracies between and within both factions. The seductive, magical aspect of this series has shifted to something darker and more violent, though I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. But like I said, there is now very little of the delicious romance that first drew me in, though I suppose this was something I'd already expected even as I was zipping to the library to snag the second book as soon as I was finished with the first. I understand you have to ramp up the romantic drama somehow to make things interesting, especially in a trilogy. Sadly, it just didn't work for me; the relationship between Karou and Akiva was at once reduced to slow, dull, typical.

On the other hand, there's so much more to this series than just the romance. When I wasn't so busy being a morose sentimentalist, I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot, especially the chapters leading up to the ending. As irked as I was with the comedy of errors that has become of Karou and Akiva's love story, the gripping suspense in the conclusion and its promise of an incredible finale in the third book went a long way to make up for my disappointment. I still like the story, and desperately want to know what happens next.

I also don't want to make it sound like the book is completely devoid of love and lightness. After all, one of my favorite characters is Zuzana, Karou's best friend, who has found happiness with her boyfriend Mik. Their relationship is like a potent concoction of sweetness and humor injected right into the story -- almost like the author realized in advance that she would need to include them somehow to make everything feel less empty and bleak. It worked, for the most part; Zuzana's chapters carried a big part of this book for me. As I grew less interested in Karou and Akiva, my fondness for other characters increased. Besides Zuzana and Mik, I also very much liked Liraz and Hazael, Akiva's angel siblings and loyal companions.

And of course, Laini Taylor's writing is as beautiful as always, bringing her worlds and characters to life. In this area she has not let me down yet. Even though I didn't like this book as much as the first, there's still plenty here to gush about, as you can see. Very much looking forward to the third book to see how the war culminates as well as to discover the fates of Akiva and Karou.

3.5 of 5 stars

Waiting on Wednesday 12/04/13

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that lets us feature upcoming releases that we can't wait to get our hands on!

Mogsy's Pick

Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor: April 8, 2014 (Little, Brown & Company)

I devoured the first two books of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series in November, so now naturally I am itching to get my hands on book three!

"By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz.

Common enemy, common cause.

When Jael's brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people.

And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love.

But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz ... something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world.

What power can bruise the sky?

From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy.

At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?"

YA Weekend: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Date of Publication: September 27, 2011

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy's Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars - "Sensual, dark and bewitching, this book had me inexorably hooked by its beautiful prose and passionate tale of forbidden romance"

Let me just start this review by saying how glad I am to have finally picked up this book! Now that I've finished reading it, I can't help but wonder just what on earth had kept me waiting so long. It also just occurred to me that 2013 has been a great year for me when it comes to Young Adult paranormal fantasy novels featuring angels.

The interesting thing I found about Daughter of Smoke and Bone is that it really reads like a book with two distinct parts. The first part introduces us to our main protagonist and narrator Karou, a blue-haired young woman studying at an art school in Prague. Her sketchbooks are filled with drawings of chimeric monsters and other fantastical beings, which all her friends think are the products of an excessively-active imagination. None of them know the truth, that the strange creatures are in fact all very real, and Karou is a very special girl. In her secret life she runs mysterious errands for her foster family, led by the demonic looking Brimstone, the chimaera whose shop opens a portal between two worlds.

But then around the world, burned and blackened hand prints begin appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged figures that witnesses can only describe as angels. Thus we meet Akiva, one of these beautiful, angelic strangers, who happens to catch sight of Karou while she was on one of Brimstone's errands. In my eyes, the moment they clashed heralded the beginning of the second part of the story, told mostly in flashbacks and memories. It's a shame that I can't really say more, because this to me was where things started getting really good. I won't spoil the book, but I will bring attention to the opening lines, which I think sums things up nicely:

Once upon a time,

an angel and a devil fell in love.

It did not end well.

Two words: forbidden love. I'll admit I have a weakness for it. Don't get me wrong, I've always appreciated having a little romance in my reading, but I generally don't go all sentimental and lose my head over mushy stories of star-crossed love. But Forbidden Love will do it. Every. Single. Time. I am such a sucker for all that comes with it, the ache and longing, the clandestine meetings and the inevitable tragedies. I swear it should be like a genre in itself! Something about books like this make me get all tingly inside, and then everything else just fades away as I become inexorably hooked.

The second half of Daughter of Smoke and Bone did just that to me. The first half was pleasant enough, but I did not feel the connection to this book until Karou and Akiva finally meet and their relationship is explained, the intricacies of their story peeling away gradually, layer by delicious layer. Normally I think I would be repelled by this style of story-telling with all the time jumping and perspective switching, but somehow the author makes it work.

It helps of course that Laini Taylor writes oh so beautifully. The intensity and passion in the romance is almost palpable, due in part to her wonderful prose. Also, when she's not enchanting me with her rich and detailed descriptions of the city, she is making me smile with the bright and spirited personality of Karou. As to the former, I loved that this book takes place in Prague, the perfect setting for a story like this about myth and magic. Everything comes together to create a mood that is all at once sensual, dark and bewitching.

This book, especially with the revelations contained in its final chapters, completely captivated me. Yes, my penchant for this kind of love story may have a lot to do with it, but at the same time, the beauty of the writing as well as the sheer amount of creativity and inventiveness behind the book's premise cannot be denied. I don't often feel the urge to jump right into the next installment of a series, even for books I've really enjoyed, preferring to take breaks in between. But I didn't want to wait for this one. Even as I write this, a copy of Days of Blood and Starlight is now in my possession and waiting to be read, and I am very much looking forward to starting it next.

4.5 of 5 stars