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A review by billblume
Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
5.0
One of the best books I was introduced to last year was Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone. The first book impressed the hell out of me. Now that I've read the sequel Days of Blood & Starlight, I'm a full-fledged Laini Taylor fan.
As far as sequels go, this book does EVERYTHING that a second book in a series should do. Laini reveals more of the world(s) and lets the storyline progress in a natural fashion, giving it just the right nudges to send the main characters into the worst trouble possible.
Laini makes some bold moves within this book, not the least of which is waiting several chapters into the book to reveal the whereabouts and condition of the main character Karou.
I will say that while this book stands on its own, I wouldn't recommend skipping the first book. I'm not sure the opening will invest the reader as strongly if they're unfamiliar with the characters and storyline. Besides, part of this book's charm is how Laini takes what started as a tragic love story and turns it into a well-constructed, entertaining morality tale on how war is a self-sustaining monster.
If I had to nitpick, there are a few quibbles. Karou's best friend Zuzana is entertaining, but only in small doses. Much as I enjoyed some of her scenes, I quickly wanted to smack her across the head and tell her to shut up for five minutes, find a corner and grow up. Of course, I'm a 41-year-old, and Zuzana is a teenager; this means Laini has captured the true teenage personality.
Another small gripe comes from Karou being oblivious to the plot against her by Thiago, the leader of the Chimaera army, what's left of it. He needs Karou in order to resurrect his army and saddles her with an unwanted assistant to speed up the process. Yeah, right. Even before Ten (said assistant in cahoots with Thiago) starts talking about how she might help Karou restore her soul to a Chimaera body, it's pretty obvious that Thiago is plotting to kill Karou and replace her with Ten as the new resurrectionist. How pathetically obvious is Thiago's plot? Notice I'm not even warning readers about this as a spoiler. The only thing that could make it more apparent is if Ten wore a t-shirt that says, I'm here to murder and replace Karou. So when Karou is stunned to realize this is Thiago's plan against her two-thirds of the way into the book, I was more stunned that Karou hadn't been operating fully aware of that fact all along.
Those tiny missteps aside, the book is just bloody brilliant. The last third of the book is packed solid with one twist after another. Best of all, every twist makes perfect sense, and it's Laini's brilliant use of pacing and point-of-view that makes each twist so damned effective.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone delivers a cleverly-plotted fantasy novel, but Days of Blood & Starlight turns this series into an epic work of fiction that raises the bar for fantasy writers while painting a horrific portrait of how even violence born from the best of intentions can only lead to more violence.
Thank God the third book is just a month-and-a-half away from release, because I can't wait!
As far as sequels go, this book does EVERYTHING that a second book in a series should do. Laini reveals more of the world(s) and lets the storyline progress in a natural fashion, giving it just the right nudges to send the main characters into the worst trouble possible.
Laini makes some bold moves within this book, not the least of which is waiting several chapters into the book to reveal the whereabouts and condition of the main character Karou.
I will say that while this book stands on its own, I wouldn't recommend skipping the first book. I'm not sure the opening will invest the reader as strongly if they're unfamiliar with the characters and storyline. Besides, part of this book's charm is how Laini takes what started as a tragic love story and turns it into a well-constructed, entertaining morality tale on how war is a self-sustaining monster.
If I had to nitpick, there are a few quibbles. Karou's best friend Zuzana is entertaining, but only in small doses. Much as I enjoyed some of her scenes, I quickly wanted to smack her across the head and tell her to shut up for five minutes, find a corner and grow up. Of course, I'm a 41-year-old, and Zuzana is a teenager; this means Laini has captured the true teenage personality.
Another small gripe comes from Karou being oblivious to the plot against her by Thiago, the leader of the Chimaera army, what's left of it. He needs Karou in order to resurrect his army and saddles her with an unwanted assistant to speed up the process. Yeah, right. Even before Ten (said assistant in cahoots with Thiago) starts talking about how she might help Karou restore her soul to a Chimaera body, it's pretty obvious that Thiago is plotting to kill Karou and replace her with Ten as the new resurrectionist. How pathetically obvious is Thiago's plot? Notice I'm not even warning readers about this as a spoiler. The only thing that could make it more apparent is if Ten wore a t-shirt that says, I'm here to murder and replace Karou. So when Karou is stunned to realize this is Thiago's plan against her two-thirds of the way into the book, I was more stunned that Karou hadn't been operating fully aware of that fact all along.
Those tiny missteps aside, the book is just bloody brilliant. The last third of the book is packed solid with one twist after another. Best of all, every twist makes perfect sense, and it's Laini's brilliant use of pacing and point-of-view that makes each twist so damned effective.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone delivers a cleverly-plotted fantasy novel, but Days of Blood & Starlight turns this series into an epic work of fiction that raises the bar for fantasy writers while painting a horrific portrait of how even violence born from the best of intentions can only lead to more violence.
Thank God the third book is just a month-and-a-half away from release, because I can't wait!