Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor

Read from December 10 to December 12.

Now this is the kind of book I love to read. Where the language is beautiful and lyrical and evocative, almost on the verge of becoming Purple Prose. This is also the kind of book I want my novels to be like.

The beginning was... interesting. There were a few things that I raised my eyebrows at, but they were quickly over and I moved past them. After that, everything was a wild, mysterious, and wildly beautiful ride towards the end. I loved how except for a few scenes, the entire book was set in Prague, which is not a usual setting for a young adult novel. And one one scene out of the whole thing was in the United States. A certain aspect, not unlike one I made up a month ago for my own trilogy, gives the book the world as its stage.

The story was just fabulous. I was thrown for a loop on several twists, although I did predict one big one pretty far in advance. It was a story unlike anything I've ready before, and in YA that's always refreshing. Because like it or not YA tends to recycle the same story with different settings and characters. It has nothing to do with the lack of imagination of the writers and everything to do with the market. Teens tend to read the same type of story, gobbling up as much as they can get of what they like. And so the publishers try to churn out as much as they can of that kind of story until the market gets overrun with the same story. It's the nature of the game. So when I find something that is unique, a trend starter if you will, I always get a little thrill. This is something new, something original.

There were a couple of things I had a tiny problem with. One; There was no such thing as an average looking person. Everyone was beautiful or hideous. There was no in between, which isn't like real life at all. Mind you, this is a fantasy though and through, and there were definite reasons for the beauty and horror, but at the same time, it would have been nice to have at least a few characters who were normal. Two; It seems like writers don't know how to do real first aid.

Let me elaborate. In Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children one of the characters get's shot in the shoulder area. At least, that's the impression I got with the description. The other characters put a tourniquet on him. In Daughter of Smoke and Bone, a character get's mauled from "collarbone to bicep" and another character puts a tourniquet on him. Now, I'm not an expert, but I have been certified in professional level first aid before (years ago). And you don't put tourniquet's on injuries on those locations. It's physically impossible. So either I am imagining the injuries wrong, or the authors didn't do their research properly.

Those two things were minor compared to all the good things about this beautiful, haunting novel.

Rating: Re-Readable.

Have you read a book where the author didn't do their research and you could tell? What book was it? Tell me about it in the comments!

Have you read Daughter of Smoke and Bone? If you have, tell me what you thought in the comments.

Thanks for reading!