Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #2) - Laini Taylor

 

Summary

Goodreads:  Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?


Thoughts

If Daughter of Smoke and Bone was all mysticism and wonder and magical, this book is pain and devastation.  I knew as soon as I started liking something - anything it didn't even have to be a character, something terrible was about to happen.  There are scenes in here that were graphic and terrifying...at least for me.  It's common knowledge on this blog that graphic and terrifying are not things I handle well in books, so while I found them...horrifying, some of you might be less disturbed haha.

I don't have near as much to say about this book.  If you liked the first book, this carries on in much the same vein, and luckily there's still plenty of Zusanna!  There are definitely some twists here that I definitely didn't see coming.  (And in one case I thought SPOILERS would be more emotionally invested in the angel's brother's death since he's supposed to be all sunshine and happiness, but I guess we just don't get much connection to him. END SPOILERS).  I'm not sure how I feel about where this book is going (Is there anything involving angels that doesn't involve war damn it?!), but I trust Laini enough to stick around to see where this will take us.  I'm third in line at the library for the book after it's released (and the library actually receives it) so yay!

TL;DR

You've read Daughter of Smoke and Bone and loved it.  Good, read this next.  You haven't read Daughter of Smoke and Bone.  Well what are you doing silly?  Go read it!

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