(no subject)
Nov. 23rd, 2012 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsLaini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone is one of those books that I can pretty easily split into Bits I Really Liked and Bits I Cared About Not At All.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is about a Prague art student named Karou who has brilliant artistic talent and natural bright blue hair and is excellent at all languages and if all this seems too good to be true, it's because she is actually the ward-and-errand-girl of a magical creature who pays her in small wishes that she can use to, you know, be magically good at languages or turn her hair naturally blue.
Karou has:
- an awesome puppetry student BFF named Zuzana who makes giant reverse puppet shows and calls her constantly on disappearing and being generally cryptic: great! ALL ABOUT THIS. Would read the book that was just Karou and Zuzana being art school bffs SO HARD
- a complicated and deep and super interesting relationship with her magical chimera family: yes! found families with complex things going on with loyalty and trust, yes, I am there
- a secret past involving an interesting fantasy world that deals with institutionalized oppression and war atrocities: can get on board with this
Karou also has:
- a DESTINED STAR-CROSSED LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT WITH THE ENEMY OF HER PEOPLE, A SEXY ANGEL WITH A TORMENTED PAST: oh, man. I tried, I really did! But I found it . . . impossible to care . . .
I also do not know how I feel about the prose, which is sort of overwrought in a way that I think is deliberate but I also found sort of distancing. I kind of want this story to be a manga. It would be an AWESOME manga. Angels and chimerae and shadowy Prague landscapes and giant puppets and lush visuals everywhere! (PAGING KAORI YUKI.)
And I did not love Karou's backstory reveal; I mean, the story that Taylor wants to tell is a perfectly legitimate and reasonably creepy story, but I was way more interested in Karou as a normal human with accidentally-acquired knowledge and abilities than in Karou as the best and sweetest and prettiest of all the chimerae. Also I felt really bad for her adopted sister, mostly because the narrative has NO SYMPATHY FOR HER WHATSOEVER.
Still trying to decide whether to read the next one; the trouble is that mostly I just want the Zuzana Chronicles.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is about a Prague art student named Karou who has brilliant artistic talent and natural bright blue hair and is excellent at all languages and if all this seems too good to be true, it's because she is actually the ward-and-errand-girl of a magical creature who pays her in small wishes that she can use to, you know, be magically good at languages or turn her hair naturally blue.
Karou has:
- an awesome puppetry student BFF named Zuzana who makes giant reverse puppet shows and calls her constantly on disappearing and being generally cryptic: great! ALL ABOUT THIS. Would read the book that was just Karou and Zuzana being art school bffs SO HARD
- a complicated and deep and super interesting relationship with her magical chimera family: yes! found families with complex things going on with loyalty and trust, yes, I am there
- a secret past involving an interesting fantasy world that deals with institutionalized oppression and war atrocities: can get on board with this
Karou also has:
- a DESTINED STAR-CROSSED LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT WITH THE ENEMY OF HER PEOPLE, A SEXY ANGEL WITH A TORMENTED PAST: oh, man. I tried, I really did! But I found it . . . impossible to care . . .
I also do not know how I feel about the prose, which is sort of overwrought in a way that I think is deliberate but I also found sort of distancing. I kind of want this story to be a manga. It would be an AWESOME manga. Angels and chimerae and shadowy Prague landscapes and giant puppets and lush visuals everywhere! (PAGING KAORI YUKI.)
And I did not love Karou's backstory reveal; I mean, the story that Taylor wants to tell is a perfectly legitimate and reasonably creepy story, but I was way more interested in Karou as a normal human with accidentally-acquired knowledge and abilities than in Karou as the best and sweetest and prettiest of all the chimerae. Also I felt really bad for her adopted sister, mostly because the narrative has NO SYMPATHY FOR HER WHATSOEVER.
Still trying to decide whether to read the next one; the trouble is that mostly I just want the Zuzana Chronicles.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 03:14 am (UTC)I am sufficiently curious about how they're going to resolve this that I'm probably in for the rest of the trilogy, but I might wait until it's complete before catching up in one go, I've heard some iffy spoilers about the second book.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-25 05:00 pm (UTC). . . what are the spoilers? >.> I kind of just want to know to decide whether I'm in for the long haul . . .
no subject
Date: 2012-11-26 02:24 am (UTC)Vague spoilers say there's rape in the second book (more details in this review) Which, not necessarily a deal breaker but yeah, I might wait till the third is out and see how she sticks the landing before reading them in go, in that case.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-26 02:49 am (UTC). . . and that review is making me feel fairly sure that, as of right now, I am not really interested in reading the rest. But that may change! I think I will adopt your policy of wait-and-see. Thanks for linking!