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?

How many times have I stated that Daughter of Smoke & Bone is one of my favourite books? Too many to count on one hand, anyway. Too many to count on both hands. For the past year, I have solidly recommended that novel to anyone who has asked my opinion on the subject. For the past year, I’ve held Laini Taylor up on a pedestal; surely, surely someone who has the ability to write the bittersweet masterpiece that is Daughter of Smoke & Bone possesses some sort of otherworldly powers. Surely I haven’t been wrong about that for all of this time.

Despite my doubt in my super hero of an idol, I will still recommend Daughter of Smoke & Bone, this trilogy’s first book, to anyone who will listen. My feelings for that novel will always remain sincere. But no matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure out what was going through Miss Taylor’s head when she wrote Days of Blood & Starlight. Perhaps she had a brief lapse in judgement. Or, you know, wanted to shell-shock her number one fan.

I’m not saying that Days of Blood & Starlight didn’t have its high points. It did. It had many of them. Every chapter ended in a cliffhanger; as a result, the ever-changing point of views were absolute torture. I had to keep reading in order to discover what happened to every member of the incredibly large cast of characters. Moreover, Taylor’s writing remained hauntingly beautiful. Every sentence was like a drop of dew on a spider web: hopeful and desolate, fragile and everlasting, a lens through which the world shone. I’ll also admit that she handles sequels rather well; usually trilogies’ middle children are mere filler books, but here the action just kept coming, secret after secret and coup after coup.

And all of that for naught. Because all through Days of Blood & Starlight, only one thought rang clearly through my mind: what happened to Karou? The tamed, shamed and sniveling protagonist whom we are forced to endure in this novel bears no resemblance to Daughter of Smoke & Bone‘s kick-ass heroine. What happened to the girl who stood up for herself, no matter the consequences? What happened to the girl who would never look down, shamefaced, or allow herself to be abased by her bruises? The girl who would never, ever let herself play the part of a pawn in a miscreant’s plot to rule the world? This Karou is not that girl. And, oh, do I want her back.

Of all of the protagonists I’ve encountered, I never would have thought that  Karou would be the one to disappoint me. Some people are strengthened by tragedy, while others are broken by it. Our favourite blue-haired heroine has, unfortunately, fallen into the latter category. For some reason I can’t fathom, Taylor has transformed her into your sad, average YA protagonist. You know what I’m talking about: she can’t go a chapter without feeling sorry for herself, she lets herself be bossed around by just about everyone, and constantly cowers in her room because *gasp!* people might not like her.

I mean, look at this crap:

Whatever went on in the ashfall landscape and blood-crusted world of war where her creations went forth to do violence, it wasn’t her concern. She conjured the bodies; that was all.

What more could she possibly do?

Oh, please, Karou, don’t pull that. Just because you have an excuse to go all submissive on me doesn’t mean you should.

Because the truth is that Karou does have a perfectly good reason to stand aside while her kind’s future is crushed and butchered. Daughter of Smoke & Bone‘s ending sort of ensured that. But for the love of Brimstone, how could she even consider that as an option, let alone embrace it? Zuzana and Liraz were probably my favourite characters in Days of Blood & Starlight, and that’s saying something.

Towards the end of the novel, Karou does man up. I appreciate that. However, she’s more bark than bite, and I’m still waiting to see her doused flame catch fire once again.

4/5 stars. Maybe my expectations were too high. Nonetheless, Laini Taylor, you still have a chance to redeem yourself. The day this trilogy’s final book is released will be a happy day!

I’ll keep you posted,

Happy Tuesday! (Almost) Every Tuesday at around this time, I participate in The Broke and the Bookish‘s Top Ten Tuesday weekly meme. This week’s theme is Top 1o books I’d like to find in my stocking (there are only 21 days until Christmas!), and I’m counting down from number 10:

I’ll keep you posted,

There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

The first time I read Beautiful Creatures was in the 8th grade. Needless to say, I quickly fell in love with it. What tween wouldn’t? The passionate characters, the action-packed plot, the clichéd Southern town– all elements destined to charm someone recently introduced to YA. Rereading the novel, however, I’m not so sure. Of course it held its original allure, but what lies a mere scratch below the surface?

The world building was exactly how I remembered it: an almost Gothic setting in all of its small town glory. Nothing ever changes in Gatlin; the girls continue to dye their hair the same shade of blond, the Daughters of the American Revolution (a group of all too type-A women) continue to wear the pants, and the small town people remain just as small-minded. Now, as a rule, I love Southern settings. There’s something about them– the accents, the secrets, the  lull, the food– that just tickles me pink. Nonetheless, I am in agreement with many reviewers out there when I say that there’s something about Ethan that sours the whole thing. Perhaps it’s the fact that the only acceptable characters are, in fact, either not from Gatlin or dying to get out of it. Maybe it’s the part where Ethan mentions that the only reason he doesn’t have an accent is that his parents are ‘educated’ professors (and, honestly, who could have anything against a Southern accent?). Ethan’s utter dismissal of Gatlin is not an overgeneralization, but  a complete stereotype– and, probably, a prejudice on the part of the authors.

Hence, you will not be shocked in any way when I tell you that Lena, the raven-maned, unconventionally literate and downright unique love interest, is not from Gatlin. She’s not really from anywhere; she’s moved all over the globe, from relative to relative, since her parents died mysteriously in a car crash.  The only constant in her life is her series of spiral-bounded notebooks, in which she pours her heart out through poetry and prose. Oh, and her superpowers. Lena is a Caster: a paranormal creature possessing personalized supernatural abilities, otherwise known as a slight variation of a witch. (And although the variation is slight, it is appreciated.)

Something else that would have been appreciated, given alternate circumstances, is the twist on the paranormal/mortal couple. Three cheers for female supernaturals and male protagonists! That aspect of Beautiful Creatures was completely refreshing– until the usual beef became involved. The usual beef goes something like this:

Okay, now picture the roles reversed with the guy as a vampire and the girl as a human. Now picture every single paranormal romance you’ve ever read. Ring any bells?

I’ll give you another small glimpse into Beautiful Creatures‘ plot: Lena is, to say the least, not looking forward to her birthday.  In her family, a sweet 16 is not exactly an occasion for celebration. But when the plot finally unrolls and Lena’s birthday is upon us, do we discover the terrible truth of her fate? No, I must tell you, we do not. We are instead graciously invited to read the sequel. And that’s all and well. Until you realize, as a reader, that the authors never actually finished their line of thought. Thank goodness the sequel has already been published, or I would have been tempted not to read it at all in an effort to make my point.

This is not to say that this novel had no high points. As I’ve attempted to explain, every element of Beautiful Creatures had its highlights– but it also had its failures. Other high points include the constant allusions to and quotes from classics, which were nice to see in this context. Amma, of course, was S-U-P-E-R-B: 7 across and as deadly as any motherly figure could be.

It’s evident that Ms. Garcia and Ms. Stohl are trying to write a gem of a paranormal romance that impacts its readers. What is not evident is whether or not they have succeeded. I’m giving it 3.2/5 stars; 3 stars for its almost-succeeded attempts to be unique and 0.2 stars for its original effect on the younger, more easily-impressed version of me. Nevertheless, I do look forward to seeing the movie– Hollywood has a way of making clichés look unbearably attractive. You can see Beautiful Creatures‘ trailer here.

I’ll keep you posted,

Happy… Wednesday! (Almost) Every Tuesday at around this time, I participate in The Broke and the Bookish‘s Top Ten Tuesday weekly meme. This week’s theme is Top 1o books I’d want with me on a deserted island, and I’m counting down from number 10:

I’ll keep you posted,

Happy Tuesday! Every week at about this time, I participate in The Broke and the Bookish‘s Top Ten Tuesday weekly meme. This week’s theme is Top 1o Freebie, and I am using it as a wonderful opportunity to catch up on last week’s subject, which I conveniently missed. I’m counting down from number 10:

I’ll keep you posted,