Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 528
Readership: Young adult
Genres: fantasy
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?
The first book I read in 2012 was Daughter of Smoke and Bone so it's only fitting that I close this year out with it's sequel.
Wow is one word that perfectly sums up Days of Blood and Starlight. It just blew me away. The pace was a little slow in the beginning but that didn't make it any less enjoyable. Laini's prose is just wonderful. It paints such a vivid picture in your mind of the characters, the world, what's going on and everything else. Laini definitely has a gift for words. It felt like Eretz was a legitimate real place and if you found a portal and a way in, you too could visit it.
The new characters in Days are an interesting bunch. There is Ziri and Sarazel just to name a couple. Some get more page time than others but they are all wonderful. But there are also the old characters that we learn so much more about. Zuzana and Mik have a big part and I absolutely adored them. They were light in Karou's darkness. They brought humor and loyalty when Karou needed it most. We also get to see more of Akiva's brother and sister Liraz and Hazael. They became more real than the two soldiers we had met in Daughter of Smoke and Bone. There were new depths to them, flaws and wonder, that I thought was great. I really adored them by the end of it. There is also Thiago who is as vile as ever. There was one point in the novel that made me nauseous. I've never wished a villain dead as much as I wanted him to die. He is one villain I don't think has any redeeming qualities. Vile, vile man. Laini did an amazing job with all of these characters, making them feel so real and three dimensional that you had strong emotions for all of them.
I enjoyed that we got to see different perspectives from some characters - some fleeting - in different chapters of the book. It just rounded out the overall feel of the novel as a whole. You got to see the Hintermost, Astrae and the human world from all these different perspective with all these different emotions and experiences that just created a great experience for the reader.
Days of Blood and Starlight was absolutely exquisit. There is so much packed into it, so many twists and turns and surprises that you're not going to want to put it down. It will make you laugh, cry and maybe even want to throw it across the room. It's a wonderful gem and I already want the sequel. What a cliffhanger!
★★★★★
I LOVED IT
Thank you to Hachette Book Group Canada for providing a copy for review!
PURCHASE
Days of Blood was amazing indeed! When an early review mentioned the multiple perspectives, I thought I would hate it because I usually don't like it when 'page time' is taken away from the main character but in this case it was amazing! I agree that it rounded off the book perfectly.
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