You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
kathrynd 's review for:
Days of Blood & Starlight
by Laini Taylor
There's such a drastic tonal shift between the first book and this one I think reading it gave me whiplash. The first book is all magic and dreamy eyes and a little bit of alluding to a war that's on the horizon. But mostly it explores the strange, other-worldly, insta-love connection between Karou and Akiva. And I'm a romance reader, so naturally I thought: yes, this is great. They're cute and I'm enjoying this.
And then the second book started and suddenly we hate Akiva, he's a betrayer so he and Karou don't interact at all in this book. Aside from a few moments there's no romance in this story. None. And that would have been fine, had I actually been anticipating it. I think the first book did such a good job at building up this romance that the sudden departure from it really ruined the reading experience for me. I kept reading each page and waiting for Akiva to show up, for Karou to find her way to Akiva and for romance to ensue. But no.
Instead, we're reading about the build-up to war and a whole bunch of stuff happening that was really very difficult to keep track of. To me, this was a disappointing sequel because it lacked that magic that had me hooked in the first book. It was just very simply put, boring. The climax of the story hardly felt like one at all, as the writing style impeded on the character's emotional reactions. So it read much like 'this happened. Which is awful...'. It just fell really flat for me.
As for the writing style, I really loved it in the first book. There was a lot of whimsy to it and the magic was beautifully explored. But then, the darker tone this book sets detracted from that sense of whimsy entirely. And the multiple perspectives, oh my god how I hate multiple perspectives. There's a sure-fire way of destroying tension and completing ruining a climax and that is though multi-perspective chapters. So not only did this book have multiple perspectives, but there were multi-POVs within chapters. Which made everything so difficult to keep track of. On occasion, it would take a whole paragraph to realize who's eyes we're looking through, thus making said paragraph a total information-dump.
This book does attempt to explore darker themes such as rape and the departure from one's own fantasies to dealing with the harsh realities of war. But it didn't work for me. Had the first book foreshadowed any of this tonal shift I would've been fine, I love dark themes I think they're incredibly interesting. Even within this book the inclusion of Zuzana and Mik for a bit of light in such a dark landscape detracted for me. Either go full out with the dark themes and let it be, or just make it a lighter story. While I did enjoy reading about them, their presence to me felt so forced and unnecessary.
Overall I didn't enjoy this book. I really thought it was just so boring. I will finish the series as I'm curious to see what will happen, and I'm just praying for a little bit, just a CRUMB of romance. I think there's a lot of good ideas to be explored and I do like the characters, it all just was very monotonous to me.
And then the second book started and suddenly we hate Akiva, he's a betrayer so he and Karou don't interact at all in this book. Aside from a few moments there's no romance in this story. None. And that would have been fine, had I actually been anticipating it. I think the first book did such a good job at building up this romance that the sudden departure from it really ruined the reading experience for me. I kept reading each page and waiting for Akiva to show up, for Karou to find her way to Akiva and for romance to ensue. But no.
Instead, we're reading about the build-up to war and a whole bunch of stuff happening that was really very difficult to keep track of. To me, this was a disappointing sequel because it lacked that magic that had me hooked in the first book. It was just very simply put, boring. The climax of the story hardly felt like one at all, as the writing style impeded on the character's emotional reactions. So it read much like 'this happened. Which is awful...'. It just fell really flat for me.
As for the writing style, I really loved it in the first book. There was a lot of whimsy to it and the magic was beautifully explored. But then, the darker tone this book sets detracted from that sense of whimsy entirely. And the multiple perspectives, oh my god how I hate multiple perspectives. There's a sure-fire way of destroying tension and completing ruining a climax and that is though multi-perspective chapters. So not only did this book have multiple perspectives, but there were multi-POVs within chapters. Which made everything so difficult to keep track of. On occasion, it would take a whole paragraph to realize who's eyes we're looking through, thus making said paragraph a total information-dump.
This book does attempt to explore darker themes such as rape and the departure from one's own fantasies to dealing with the harsh realities of war. But it didn't work for me. Had the first book foreshadowed any of this tonal shift I would've been fine, I love dark themes I think they're incredibly interesting. Even within this book the inclusion of Zuzana and Mik for a bit of light in such a dark landscape detracted for me. Either go full out with the dark themes and let it be, or just make it a lighter story. While I did enjoy reading about them, their presence to me felt so forced and unnecessary.
Overall I didn't enjoy this book. I really thought it was just so boring. I will finish the series as I'm curious to see what will happen, and I'm just praying for a little bit, just a CRUMB of romance. I think there's a lot of good ideas to be explored and I do like the characters, it all just was very monotonous to me.