This is the second book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bones trilogy. If you haven't read the first book, you probably shouldn't read any further because there might be spoilers. I reviewed the first book here.
Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
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?
This book was simply amazing. Laini Taylor's writing is so beautiful and her imagination must be the most wonderful thing in this world. I don't know how she came up with a story like this - a story that made it impossible to stop reading - but I am so glad she did.
So much happened in this book and I loved it all. After finishing the first book, I had hoped the second one would be even better, and it did not let me down. This book kept me on edge throughout the whole story. I was so scared of what would happen next all the time because, let's be honest, anything could happen. Laini Taylor is not scared to kill off characters and who knows what else she had come up with? Luckily, she's also a genius writer and everything comes together in the end so wonderfully. Just enough good news to balance out the bad, and enough hope to keep you reading.
As I said, I loved everything in this book. Karou's development was wonderful to watch and even though I was screaming at her in my head at some points, I think she handled everything pretty well. I hadn't expected her to keep going after Brimstone's death the way she did, but it just all made so much sense.
One of my favorite things about the book was how Zuzana and Mik still played an important role. I kind of expected them to be cast aside, since, you know, there's a whole new world to be explored in the book. But they weren't and, again, everything worked together so perfectly. There are also a lot of new characters introduced, which I liked a lot. Even though most made my skin crawl, I loved reading about everyone equally. Usually I have one or two characters that I'm most interested in but here I just wanted to know about everyone and everything.
Another thing that I thought was done incredibly well was Karou's and Akiva's relationship. Even more than in the first book, romance was not the main focus of the story at all and, surprisingly, that didn't bother me one bit. There are still a lot of mixed feelings between the two and as a reader, you got to feel that so well. Even though I do want the romantic happy ending, I am okay with not getting it (yet). The things Karou felt just seemed so reasonable. I mean, who could blame her?
All in all, this book was just incredible. I can't wait to see how the series ends because I'm sure it will be epic. All the tiny problems I had with the first book were completely forgotten after the first few pages of this book.
Let me know what you thought of Days of Blood & Starlight and thank you for reading!
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