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heavyhearts's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
rachachisaur's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.75
Adding in a third plot line was questionable, and a little jarring. The book comes to what feels like a natural ending a little over halfway through, then the third plot line kicks in and adds a second story almost. It didn’t quite mesh with the previous two books.
rubycoalbolt's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
sabreena29's review against another edition
2.0
Kiri
When Karou ACTUALLY forgives Akiva?
Because NO MATTER the reasons, and no matter how much I love Akiva he still played a part in KILLING Karou's family which... I mean... Just..
When Karou ACTUALLY forgives Akiva?
Because NO MATTER the reasons, and no matter how much I love Akiva he still played a part in KILLING Karou's family which... I mean... Just..
crystalstarrlight's review against another edition
2.0
Bullet Review:
You mean I tolerated over 600+ of purple prose, no plot, Mary Sue and Marty Stu gaping at each other, a haphazard plot wrap up followed by a tacked on cliffhanger with a literal deus ex machina FOR A FADE TO BLACK?!?!! Laini must be laughing to the bank - how do the fans tolerate this big F$&@ you?!!?!! You don't even get a sappy, purple-prose love scene!!!
I'm so mad at this ending, I could spit. Or raise my eyebrows like we spent a chapter detailing how much skill Zuzana had.
If it weren't for bothering to add some backstory and answer some goddamn questions, this would be 1-stars.
Full review:
WARNING: NEGATIVE OPINION TIME. Megafans of all things Laini Taylor and "Daughter of Smoke & Bone" may want to avoid at all cost.
Ye have been warned.
Enter at your own risk.
Akiva, Karou, Mik, Zuzana, Virko, Liraz, Thiago, the Misbegotten and the chimaera band together and defeat Jael, meanwhile learning about how Eretz got to be the way it is and why Stelians even exist in this world to the first place.
But most importantly - surprise, surprise, Akiva and Karou DO finally kiss and makeup, but not "make up" as in "have hot, steamy sex" or "dirty Kirin cave sex" or even just "copious purple prose sex". Their sex is the "delicate kiss followed by SYMBOLISM followed by fade to black".
That, my friends, is the story that took 600 pages to conclude. Not including the waste of paper, Book 2, clocking in at a whopping 517 pages.
Reaching the end of this trilogy, I feel like I've been totally betrayed and conned by the greatest con artist of all time - an author who with her first pretty book (which while not as amazing upon reread was still decent) convinced me to buy hardcovers of all these books AND Kindle versions, only to give me the most unsatisfying conclusion in the world. I don't even get a smidgeon of smut, either from Mik and Zuzana (who are still somehow in this book, even though they've worn out their welcome eons ago) or Akiva or Karou!
This book is an obscene 618 pages long, and there's about 150 pages of story, 100 pages of new characters nobody gives a f@#$ about, 50 pages of Zuzana and Mik p!ssing me off by existing and 300 pages of Akiva and Karou staring at each other, but unable to touch. Even Pushing Daisies let its main characters figure out how to effing consummate their relationship - and Ned could LITERALLY not touch Chuck!
Please, honey, don't lean in any closer or you're dead!
Taylor's propensity for verbosity leaped off the rails across the chasm, like the good old General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard - "Oh, you thought [b:Daughter of Smoke & Bone|8490112|Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)|Laini Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461353773s/8490112.jpg|13355552] was pretty?! I can out pretty that - lemme write a dictionary for you! Isn't it SO PRETTY?!"
Ready or not, here I come!
Yes, Laini Taylor can write. She can write like I've seen no other Young Adult author write (hell, even some ADULT authors!). In a day and age where the pedestrian, functional, often ugly writing is status quo, where Young Adult seems to mean "I couldn't bother to write better", Laini Taylor proves that an English Major isn't just for shizz and giggles. It is truly beautiful, magical, evocative and mysterious. But when you are wrapping up a plot, when you are trying to bring your two Mary Sues together (I'm sorry - Mary Sue and Marty Stu, because if you were looking for LGBT representation, keep looking), when you are trying to show a battle, maybe spending 3 chapters with your characters in a SINGLE conversation may be a little too much.
This happens. ALL. THE. TIME. Every time something needs to happen, it must be told in triplicate (Karou waxes poetic on it, Akiva mopes about it, Liraz agonizes over it, Eliza is stunned by it), as beautifully and as long-windedly as possible.
One scene that struck me as particularly superfluous was the scene where Eliza discovers the chimaera bodies. I am not questioning the fact Eliza should have discovered the chimaera bodies. I contest that we needed to spend that many chapters on detailing what they looked like, how they are buried, what the kasbah looks like because we saw them already from Karou's point of view! This is no new information, just regurgitating it.
To make matters worse - the main plot of the trilogy is wrapped up at the 80% mark! What happens for the last 20% of the book? A brand-new plot is revealed! To those who thought "Return of the King" had too many endings - be prepared.
"Daughter of Smoke and Bone" was not like this. It was tightly written - beautiful, but it was obvious there was a point. It's like as the trilogy progressed, Taylor was given ever more leniency to spin poetic and write however many words she felt like she wanted. Or her editor went on vacation.
And the fact is - if there was enough story or plot or character development, then 600+ pages wouldn't have been bad. But the fact is - no one changes or develops in this book. (Well, maybe Liraz does. But one character out of a dozen?)
We knew that Akiva and Karou would go back together, regardless of whatever "problems" came out of Book 1. Authors don't create characters like this just to have reality afflict them - we weren't going to see Karou reject Akiva and fall in love with someone new. We weren't going to see one of them die.
To make matter worse, Akiva and Karou are boring people. In English lit land, Akiva and Karou are both static characters - they are the same as they were in the beginning. They fell in lust because they were pretty, they dreamed about peace post-coitus, and they were torn apart. In this book, they are still the most gorgeous people on a planet of gorgeous people, they are still in lust with each other, and they still want to have peace. Nothing about them changed. Akiva and Karou are the prettiest people that were ever pretty - and somehow, even though they spent 18 years apart, Karou not even knowing about her real life, they haven't grown apart, grown up at all. This is incredible - how many couples can survive 18 months without growing apart?! And couples that start like Akiva and Karou, who only got together because the other was hot and they made mad sex for a solid month?!
The only dynamic character is Liraz and Liraz's story falls a distant second to our main character's Epic Twoo Lurve Story. Liraz's story is an interesting one - one of learning to embrace her emotions and learn who she is. Of course, that person seems to be one who, like most other characters, needs a man.
Even Ziri, whom I did not actively hate, isn't a dynamic character. He's a great guy - and at the end, he's still a great guy. Period.
The characters I actively hated were Eliza (why were you here anyway?!), Zuzana (I want to shave off your eyebrows), Mik (why are you here?! What did you contribute to the plot - really?!), Morgan Toth (), and Esther (what happened to you?! When did you become a b!tch?!). They ranged from Class 1: Why are you here again? to Class 5: Your character is obnoxious and needs to die. I know many love Zuzana and how Cute her Manic Pixie Dream Girl schtick is, but people...if this person existed in real life, I could not be friends with her. She is too obnoxious. And if I have to hear about how doll-like and "cute" she is, I will shoot rubber bands at her.
So I know what you're thinking: "OMG, Crystal, you read these books and wrote all this sh!t about them - why did you bother?!"
Why did I bother? Because I have a story for you - once upon a time, I read "Daughter of Smoke and Bone". Betwixt the cover of blue and black, I found a world both magical and endearing - the imagery of a young girl, playing with teeth, while overhead a brood of monsters watched her was vividly in my mind. I did once love DoS&B - when I reread the book to finish the trilogy I bought on emotional reaction to Book 1, I expected to love the book once again. To fall in love with the rest of the trilogy, to the world that once captured my heart and mind.
But a tragic thing happened - the magic was gone. Yes, the beautiful writing on DoS&B was still there, in its exquisite beauty. But in that midst, I saw the flaws - the Mary Sues, the instalove, the retconning, the paper-thin plot, the stereotyped characters, the deus ex machina. These are things that have bugged me in numerous books, that I've spoken out about. Sure, if a story is good, if I get carried away on it, then I can ignore flaws. But where once I was able to float away on this story of angels and demons, I could no longer do so.
My story of DoS&B is my story of Young Adult in general (and urban fantasy to a small extent) - I am no longer in love. Unlike Akiva and Karou, I've grown up - and grown apart. The world I once was so enamored with no longer has that shine and luster. The characters that once captivated me and made me root for them (and point to them as better than other, lesser characters *cough*Bella Swan*cough*), really showed themselves to me to be cut from the same cloth as those that I once derided. How could I give Karou a free pass on being the most gorgeous woman in existence but then condemn Bella Swan? How can I criticize Tris falling into instalove with Four when Karou does the same thing with Akiva - twice? Why does Zuzana get a pass for being cute and quirky and encouraging her friend to bone Akiva when Nora's friend, Vee, did the same thing to her?
I hate being a hypocrite. I don't want to be that person saying "This is right, but this thing that is almost exactly the same thing but ever so slightly different is wrong."
And that's what this review is.
The writing is gorgeous. I love the way Taylor writes (well, most of the time - again with the whole over-writing thing). But the story and characters and world and romance? It fell ever so flat for me.
Sometimes life isn't a fairytale - there is no "happily ever after". And sometimes you read a book, even one beloved by virtually ever other reader in existence but you, you get to the end - and it's meh. It's sad, but it happens.
You mean I tolerated over 600+ of purple prose, no plot, Mary Sue and Marty Stu gaping at each other, a haphazard plot wrap up followed by a tacked on cliffhanger with a literal deus ex machina FOR A FADE TO BLACK?!?!! Laini must be laughing to the bank - how do the fans tolerate this big F$&@ you?!!?!! You don't even get a sappy, purple-prose love scene!!!
I'm so mad at this ending, I could spit. Or raise my eyebrows like we spent a chapter detailing how much skill Zuzana had.
If it weren't for bothering to add some backstory and answer some goddamn questions, this would be 1-stars.
Full review:
WARNING: NEGATIVE OPINION TIME. Megafans of all things Laini Taylor and "Daughter of Smoke & Bone" may want to avoid at all cost.
Ye have been warned.
Enter at your own risk.
Akiva, Karou, Mik, Zuzana, Virko, Liraz, Thiago, the Misbegotten and the chimaera band together and defeat Jael, meanwhile learning about how Eretz got to be the way it is and why Stelians even exist in this world to the first place.
But most importantly - surprise, surprise, Akiva and Karou DO finally kiss and makeup, but not "make up" as in "have hot, steamy sex" or "dirty Kirin cave sex" or even just "copious purple prose sex". Their sex is the "delicate kiss followed by SYMBOLISM followed by fade to black".
That, my friends, is the story that took 600 pages to conclude. Not including the waste of paper, Book 2, clocking in at a whopping 517 pages.
Reaching the end of this trilogy, I feel like I've been totally betrayed and conned by the greatest con artist of all time - an author who with her first pretty book (which while not as amazing upon reread was still decent) convinced me to buy hardcovers of all these books AND Kindle versions, only to give me the most unsatisfying conclusion in the world. I don't even get a smidgeon of smut, either from Mik and Zuzana (who are still somehow in this book, even though they've worn out their welcome eons ago) or Akiva or Karou!
Spoiler
Or I suppose Liraz and Ziri, now that we paired the spares here. Unless you get off on handholding, I suppose.This book is an obscene 618 pages long, and there's about 150 pages of story, 100 pages of new characters nobody gives a f@#$ about, 50 pages of Zuzana and Mik p!ssing me off by existing
Spoiler
(and getting engaged after knowing each other a whopping 3 months or however long this trilogy has been)Please, honey, don't lean in any closer or you're dead!
Taylor's propensity for verbosity leaped off the rails across the chasm, like the good old General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard - "Oh, you thought [b:Daughter of Smoke & Bone|8490112|Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)|Laini Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461353773s/8490112.jpg|13355552] was pretty?! I can out pretty that - lemme write a dictionary for you! Isn't it SO PRETTY?!"
Ready or not, here I come!
Yes, Laini Taylor can write. She can write like I've seen no other Young Adult author write (hell, even some ADULT authors!). In a day and age where the pedestrian, functional, often ugly writing is status quo, where Young Adult seems to mean "I couldn't bother to write better", Laini Taylor proves that an English Major isn't just for shizz and giggles. It is truly beautiful, magical, evocative and mysterious. But when you are wrapping up a plot, when you are trying to bring your two Mary Sues together (I'm sorry - Mary Sue and Marty Stu, because if you were looking for LGBT representation, keep looking), when you are trying to show a battle, maybe spending 3 chapters with your characters in a SINGLE conversation may be a little too much.
This happens. ALL. THE. TIME. Every time something needs to happen, it must be told in triplicate (Karou waxes poetic on it, Akiva mopes about it, Liraz agonizes over it, Eliza is stunned by it), as beautifully and as long-windedly as possible.
One scene that struck me as particularly superfluous was the scene where Eliza discovers the chimaera bodies. I am not questioning the fact Eliza should have discovered the chimaera bodies. I contest that we needed to spend that many chapters on detailing what they looked like, how they are buried, what the kasbah looks like because we saw them already from Karou's point of view! This is no new information, just regurgitating it.
To make matters worse - the main plot of the trilogy is wrapped up at the 80% mark! What happens for the last 20% of the book? A brand-new plot is revealed!
Spoiler
In a Laini TaylorTM infodump, we learn why Razgut and Eleazel - Eliza's great-great and so on grandmother - were dropped off on Earth. They were part of an expeditionary force that unleashed a huge beast upon their world, causing the Seraphim and Stelians to flee to Eretz. (Incidentally, this is all interesting and good, and should have been shown in Book 2 instead of sitting here and waiting for the end of the end to be revealed - this is true for many plot elements that bother to appear here.) So in the last 15% or so, when we could be having a big @$$ f@#$ing scene between Akiva and Karou, instead we are learning how much of a super special Marty Stu Akiva is, who this Scarab is, why Eliza existed - and watching her turn into a literal Deus Ex Machina - learning that Mik and Zuzana are making the stupid choice of getting engaged and THEN having the story wrap up again! And of course, this is done in the most over-dramatic way possible - much clinging to each other, falling to the ground, crying and sobbing and gnashing of teeth ensue."Daughter of Smoke and Bone" was not like this. It was tightly written - beautiful, but it was obvious there was a point. It's like as the trilogy progressed, Taylor was given ever more leniency to spin poetic and write however many words she felt like she wanted. Or her editor went on vacation.
And the fact is - if there was enough story or plot or character development, then 600+ pages wouldn't have been bad. But the fact is - no one changes or develops in this book. (Well, maybe Liraz
Spoiler
and ZiriWe knew that Akiva and Karou would go back together, regardless of whatever "problems" came out of Book 1. Authors don't create characters like this just to have reality afflict them - we weren't going to see Karou reject Akiva and fall in love with someone new. We weren't going to see one of them die.
To make matter worse, Akiva and Karou are boring people. In English lit land, Akiva and Karou are both static characters - they are the same as they were in the beginning. They fell in lust because they were pretty, they dreamed about peace post-coitus, and they were torn apart. In this book, they are still the most gorgeous people on a planet of gorgeous people, they are still in lust with each other, and they still want to have peace. Nothing about them changed. Akiva and Karou are the prettiest people that were ever pretty - and somehow, even though they spent 18 years apart, Karou not even knowing about her real life, they haven't grown apart, grown up at all. This is incredible - how many couples can survive 18 months without growing apart?! And couples that start like Akiva and Karou, who only got together because the other was hot and they made mad sex for a solid month?!
The only dynamic character is Liraz and Liraz's story falls a distant second to our main character's Epic Twoo Lurve Story. Liraz's story is an interesting one - one of learning to embrace her emotions and learn who she is. Of course, that person seems to be one who, like most other characters, needs a man
Spoiler
because at the end she goes with Ziri, whom she's shared a whopping total of 6 lines with. Give or takeEven Ziri, whom I did not actively hate, isn't a dynamic character. He's a great guy - and at the end, he's still a great guy. Period.
Spoiler
And seriously, he should have died. This business about Liraz miraculously guiding his spirit into her canteen is bogus. Hazel has to die but Ziri doesn't?!The characters I actively hated were Eliza (why were you here anyway?!), Zuzana (I want to shave off your eyebrows), Mik (why are you here?! What did you contribute to the plot - really?!), Morgan Toth (
Spoiler
real mature wishing that his mustache would grow into a Hilter stache every hour. Totally worth a wish *eye roll*So I know what you're thinking: "OMG, Crystal, you read these books and wrote all this sh!t about them - why did you bother?!"
Why did I bother? Because I have a story for you - once upon a time, I read "Daughter of Smoke and Bone". Betwixt the cover of blue and black, I found a world both magical and endearing - the imagery of a young girl, playing with teeth, while overhead a brood of monsters watched her was vividly in my mind. I did once love DoS&B - when I reread the book to finish the trilogy I bought on emotional reaction to Book 1, I expected to love the book once again. To fall in love with the rest of the trilogy, to the world that once captured my heart and mind.
But a tragic thing happened - the magic was gone. Yes, the beautiful writing on DoS&B was still there, in its exquisite beauty. But in that midst, I saw the flaws - the Mary Sues, the instalove, the retconning, the paper-thin plot, the stereotyped characters, the deus ex machina. These are things that have bugged me in numerous books, that I've spoken out about. Sure, if a story is good, if I get carried away on it, then I can ignore flaws. But where once I was able to float away on this story of angels and demons, I could no longer do so.
My story of DoS&B is my story of Young Adult in general (and urban fantasy to a small extent) - I am no longer in love. Unlike Akiva and Karou, I've grown up - and grown apart. The world I once was so enamored with no longer has that shine and luster. The characters that once captivated me and made me root for them (and point to them as better than other, lesser characters *cough*Bella Swan*cough*), really showed themselves to me to be cut from the same cloth as those that I once derided. How could I give Karou a free pass on being the most gorgeous woman in existence but then condemn Bella Swan? How can I criticize Tris falling into instalove with Four when Karou does the same thing with Akiva - twice? Why does Zuzana get a pass for being cute and quirky and encouraging her friend to bone Akiva when Nora's friend, Vee, did the same thing to her?
I hate being a hypocrite. I don't want to be that person saying "This is right, but this thing that is almost exactly the same thing but ever so slightly different is wrong."
And that's what this review is.
The writing is gorgeous. I love the way Taylor writes (well, most of the time - again with the whole over-writing thing). But the story and characters and world and romance? It fell ever so flat for me.
Sometimes life isn't a fairytale - there is no "happily ever after". And sometimes you read a book, even one beloved by virtually ever other reader in existence but you, you get to the end - and it's meh. It's sad, but it happens.
nightwithbooks's review against another edition
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weisstars's review against another edition
1.0
after loving the first book, i noticed a decline from book 2 into book 3. book 2 was still tolerable enough to get through, but i think book 3 just did not get proper editing and revisions to help support the story that it was trying to tell.
the war aspects became incredibly boring, and unfortunately, took a centerpoint in this sequel. i felt that it became stretched too thin: there was suddenly a whole bunch of new characters and plot lines, but not in a good way. since this is the final book in the trilogy, this is not the time to suddenly make these introductions, especially with such little payoff. from page one, we get the introduction of eliza, and this already was a red flag to me. but as i kept reading, i quickly realized that everything that i loved about book 1 had become buried and lost in a sea of ambitious writing that ultimately fails.
i think book 1 will always be special. but this book completely takes what was so magical and beautiful about karou's story and begins to make it too complicated. complication, on it's own, is not a flaw nor error of a book: for example, a game of thrones is an incredibly complicated book in it's own way, and yet this only serves the book quite well due to the author's execution of it. but in dreams of gods & monsters, this only hinders the book. it stopped being about karou and akiva, and became about the gods and monsters of that world. i understand that premise, and it can be interesting, but it was not grounded in any way. it made it all feel way too abstract and detached from anything emotional and meaningful.
i also found that switching povs so much was very distracting. i hated it in book 2, and in book 3, i absolutely loathe it. i just feel like we're missing so much interesting detail.
it's fine. i still love book 1. that one will always be special. but i'm afraid book 2 and 3 were wasted potential.
the war aspects became incredibly boring, and unfortunately, took a centerpoint in this sequel. i felt that it became stretched too thin: there was suddenly a whole bunch of new characters and plot lines, but not in a good way. since this is the final book in the trilogy, this is not the time to suddenly make these introductions, especially with such little payoff. from page one, we get the introduction of eliza, and this already was a red flag to me. but as i kept reading, i quickly realized that everything that i loved about book 1 had become buried and lost in a sea of ambitious writing that ultimately fails.
i think book 1 will always be special. but this book completely takes what was so magical and beautiful about karou's story and begins to make it too complicated. complication, on it's own, is not a flaw nor error of a book: for example, a game of thrones is an incredibly complicated book in it's own way, and yet this only serves the book quite well due to the author's execution of it. but in dreams of gods & monsters, this only hinders the book. it stopped being about karou and akiva, and became about the gods and monsters of that world. i understand that premise, and it can be interesting, but it was not grounded in any way. it made it all feel way too abstract and detached from anything emotional and meaningful.
i also found that switching povs so much was very distracting. i hated it in book 2, and in book 3, i absolutely loathe it. i just feel like we're missing so much interesting detail.
it's fine. i still love book 1. that one will always be special. but i'm afraid book 2 and 3 were wasted potential.
emperor_aj's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
sshinesea's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Bestvof the series
bookdust's review against another edition
5.0
I'm a big eye roller for reviews that have no sustenance and just blubber about the readers emotions. But my heart. Oh my heart. This series has been wonderful, and its clawed it's way to my top favorites, nestling itself up next to Harry Potter. How beautiful and epic and the last sentence brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful. How BEAUTIFUL this was. How absolutely amazing and stunning and wonderful! This is a painful and happy goodbye because I don't want it to end, but I am so happy for the characters - even if Laini Taylor did end the whole series on a very CATASTROPHIC cliffhanger that honestly could have made this into a four book series. God. Oh God. Read this, please. All of you. Scepticism isn't needed here. How wonderful this series was. I feel so thankful and honored to be able to read such a beautiful story.