All too often, the hype surrounding a great book turns it into a big disappointment. I decided to read Daughter of Smoke & Bone, because one of my best friend's talked me into it. Even before I picked it up to read, I noticed a huge amount of praise for Laini Taylor's novel. To say this worried me would be understatement. So did Laini's novel live up to the hype?

In two words: Hell Yes!

I've read quite a bit of Young Adult novels within the past few years, and while this novel is considered YA, it stands apart from the rest of the pack for so many reasons. First and foremost, Laini is a damn good storyteller. One of the hardest things to do in a story is to hold back information from the reader. From the very start, you realize the main character Karou is far from an ordinary girl. Even though she attends an arts school and hangs out with friends, she's loaded with secrets. She lives with demonic-type creatures known as Chimaera, including a powerful being known as Brimstone who sends Karou on missions throughout the world to gather all sorts of teeth for his magic. How did a human girl end up with such bizarre guardians to raise her? Why has she had strange tattoos of eyes on the palms of her hands all her life? What exactly does Brimstone do with all those teeth? For that matter, why is her hair blue (well, that one you learn early on she did for herself with a magic wish and not a bottle of chemicals)?

Many writers try to infuse their stories with all sorts of mystery surrounding who and what their main characters are. Most of them fail. Laini does not. I've had time to reflect on how and why, and perhaps the most important reason it works is because the main character herself is asking these very questions along with the reader. So much of this book is about Karou learning her own origins, but there's a whole ton of other things happening, too. There's a slow reveal of a secret war between the Chimaera and Seraphim, how it spills into our world.

This book does a good job of keeping the story moving, too. I won't lie and say it isn't without some slow parts. There's romantic interest for the main character, and about two-thirds of the way into the book, the story seems to get sidetracked by this subplot. While this contains a lot of necessary material, too, I couldn't help but think Laini could have cut a lot of that material from the book in order to maintain the momentum from the first half of the story.

I'd been warned about a lot of flashbacks within the final act of the book, and I think that was helpful for me. The flashbacks pay off big for the ending, and I think by that point in the book, the reader is hungry for the information revealed. It all leads up to quite a twist of an ending which definitely doesn't leave you with a lot of happy-feel good, but I liked that about the book, too.

Perhaps one of my favorite things about this book, and this might seem a silly thing, is that it's written in third person. Oh, dear God almighty, I am so freaking tired of the first person storytelling within YA and urban fantasy. First person has its place, but it's being overused these days.

This is a damn good book, and Laini Taylor proves she's a damn good writer. If you love a good fantasy novel (regardless of it being YA) and haven't read Daughter of Smoke & Bone yet, then you should get this book now.