DAUGHTER OF THE BURNING CITY by Amanda Foody [4/5★]

Review summary: Weird and wonderful YA fantasy with creative characters and a well-crafted plot

Official summary:
“Sixteen-year-old Sorina has spent most of her life within the smoldering borders of the Gomorrah Festival. Yet even among the many unusual members of the traveling circus-city, Sorina stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. This rare talent allows her to create illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. Her creations are her family, and together they make up the cast of the Festival’s Freak Show.

But no matter how lifelike they may seem, her illusions are still just that—illusions, and not truly real. Or so she always believed…until one of them is murdered.

Desperate to protect her family, Sorina must track down the culprit and determine how they killed a person who doesn’t actually exist. Her search for answers leads her to the self-proclaimed gossip-worker Luca, and their investigation sends them through a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance, and into the most sinister corners of the Festival. But as the killer continues murdering Sorina’s illusions one by one, she must unravel the horrifying truth before all of her loved ones disappear.

Review:
According to other reviews I’ve read, this book is super weird. I only thought it was a little weird, but that probably says more about me than the book. So, fair warning: apparently this book is weird and a bit creepy so if you’re not into that, this probably isn’t the book for you. If, like me, you love weird shit, then charge ahead.
Gommorah is a travelling festival, home to all manner of “Jynx-Workers”, people with magical abilities like creating fire, telling fortunes, and manipulating shadows. The protagonist, 16 year-old Sorina, is the only known Illusionist, and has used her powers to create herself a family. She created blueprints of archetypal family members: a wise grandfather, a fun older sister, a sweet baby brother - but they all came to life with an abnormality. The grandfather grows nails instead of hair, the older sister can contort herself to any shape, and the baby brother breathes fire. Together the nine of them perform a Freak Show, and live as a close-knit family. And what an interesting family they are; I greatly enjoyed all of their different personalities and abnormalities. When I was about 10 pages in and realized I’d never actually read the blurb, so when I did read it I was already upset to learn that some of them were going to die. With how many of them there are they are mostly side-characters throughout the story, but one or two of them get interesting character arcs, and Sorina’s love for them is a constant throughout the story whether they are physically present or not.
The world of Daughter of the Burning City was varied and interesting, both inside and outside the gates of Gommorah. At first I didn’t expect the story to expand any beyond the travelling city itself, but we are gradually introduced to the country outside Gommorah, its politics and wars. The plot expands to a country-wide scale and is richer for it. So many things that seemed like merely a little quirk to add to the world-building, or even just the general atmosphere of the book, became directly relevant to the main plot. It all weaves together in a carefully planned and executed plot that all checks out in the end without gaps or unfulfilled threads. And the plot twists. It’s hard to declare a plot twist truly unexpected because everyone has different levels of perception, but I’m pretty sure the two major ones of this story were unguessable until at most a few pages beforehand. In hindsight they were well set-up throughout the novel, though they did require a bit of info-dumping afterwards to check out. I think that’s just what it takes to keep them hidden on the way in, though.
My favourite/least favourite part of the world was the licorice-coated cherries. I would trade my soul for them. Every time they were mentioned I wanted to lie down and cry because I couldn’t have any.

An unreasonable amount of fiction contains villains that aren’t good for much more than twirling their moustaches and laughing maniacally, or wanting to rule the world and/or create chaos for no particular reason. The antagonist of this novel, thankfully, is much more complex. Not heartless, not a black-and-white villain; a manipulator and a deceiver but with a greater purpose.
Generally I don’t like when a female character initially hates her male love interest, because it too often leads to her settling for an asshole, but that was not the case with Sorina and Luca. And, hey, at least it means no dreaded instalove! Even when they are kissing and officially dating - the point in YA novels when characters usually start saying they’re in love even if it’s only been a week - Sorina only says she could love Luca. I realize I’m giving praise to a romance just for being reasonable just because the bar is so low, but trust me - that’s how damn low the bar is.

“I’ve never had a crush on someone…. When the fairy tales spoke of butterflies, I didn’t anticipate it feeling more like hornets.”

I’m not sure I’ve even had a real crush in my life and even I know this is a Mood.
This book was also a masterclass in not being heteronormative. The protagonist Sorina is bi, and she doesn’t just drop a mention she’s bi and then exclusively refer to men when discussing her romantic prospects - as many other authors do and then pat themselves on the back for it - she refers to men and women equally enough times spread throughout the book to remind us she’s bi even though her love interest is male. When she doesn’t know someone else’s “preference” she doesn’t just assume they’re heterosexual. I was particularly pleased that mentions of sex workers referred to men and women equally. This was because the book I read last before this one was chock full of sexual violence against women and demeaning references to female sex workers (in a fantasy world where none of it was even necessary to be “realistic”, no less) without even the slightest hint that sexual violence against men or male sex workers even existed. So after that misogynistic garbagefest (it’s a much praised and super popular book, by the way, ugh) I was stoked and relieved for sexwork to be equally shared by men and women in Gommorah. It’s not a wildly diverse novel - since while Sorina is bi and Nicoleta is a lesbian, Sorina’s love interest is male and Nicoleta is only a minor character - but it didn’t enforce the hetero status-quo either. Like Luca, I would also like to have totally asexual tea and biscuits with The Leather Viper.
The prose was solid; the only thing it did do that I wish it hadn’t was overuse full stops instead of commas. In particular, most lists were separated with full stops rather than commas, a peculiar choice. What it didn’t do was much more vague: create a greater sense of lyricality, emotion. They weren't noticeable gaps, just areas for improvement.
The book had the fun little addition of the pages of Sorina’s designs for her illusions spread throughout, with the notes and plans of the murderer scribbled overtop. They were visually interesting but also added tension to the narrative that the illusions were being hunted, something that couldn’t come from Sorina’s first-person POV.

Other than the prose, the missing points aren’t for anything specific. Just a certain vital spark that it takes for me to love a book that wasn’t present here. Maybe one day I’ll figure out what it is, or maybe it isn’t something quantifiable anyway.

Weaker points
?

Stronger points
Characters
Plot
World-building
Diversity
Atmosphere
Pacing
Plot-twists

Content/age appropriateness warnings: swearing, semi-explicit sexual references, character death, violence/blood/wounds, references to torture, long-term illness

THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST by Emily Danforth [4.4/5★]

Stars: 4.4/5 ★ | 88/100 | A
Review Summary: Young gay girls finally get the classic coming of age novel they deserve

Official summary:
“When Cameron Post's parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they'll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.
But that relief doesn't last, and Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both.
Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship--one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultra-religious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to "fix" her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self--even if she's not exactly sure who that is.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post” is a stunning and unforgettable literary debut about discovering who you are and finding the courage to live life according to your own rules.”

Review:
As a realistic coming of age novel and not a fantasy epic, the plot isn’t much beyond the everyday life of a small town American teenage girl coming to terms to with her sexuality while having to hide it from almost everyone around her. The gay conversion therapy aspect does not begin until the halfway point, and the novel is roughly 110 thousand words. I feel the way the promotion of this book focused so heavily on the gay conversion therapy aspect did the book a disservice. For me and for other readers I have come across, it created the impression that gay conversion therapy would be the main plot of the book - so when it wasn’t, and didn’t occur until the halfway mark, it threw the pacing off. Once I flicked through the book and saw the visual divider for where the gay conversion therapy storyline began, however, I was happy to explore Cameron’s life now knowing how much longer I would be doing so until the plot shifted gears. While much of the first half may not be eventful, or even directly related to Cameron’s sexuality, I feel it was important to spend as much time as the novel did developing Cameron as a person so she wasn’t merely a victim of gay conversion therapy, but rather a gay teen with conversion therapy as part of her experiences navigating her sexuality. The book seeks to be much more than just a story of conversion therapy; it is very much Cameron’s story. She is a whole person, and not only does that make her a better character in a novel, but it also makes her an important character to readers as a vivid character not defined by or limited to her sexuality.
A 12 year-old character coping with the death of their parents throughout their teenage years could easily be the main plot of a novel. This novel already had Cameron’s sexuality as her overarching struggle and, as a result, I felt the death of her parents didn’t get anywhere near the amount of emotional attention from Cameron that an event that traumatic would actually engender in a child. That the death of her parents was included at all led me to believe they only died so it wouldn’t be them sending her to gay conversion therapy. The “evil stepmother” trope was born from the idea that a child’s birth mother would never treat her child poorly, so instead the story creator killed her and had the father’s new wife torment the children instead. Replacing Cameron’s parents with her Aunt Ruth, whom she barely knew before the event, felt like a similar ploy. By killing the parents Danforth avoided handling the difficult topic of parents who love their child sending them to gay conversion therapy as a misdirected act of love. Danforth didn’t owe us this narrative, but by not doing justice to the narrative of the death of Cameron’s parents either, it felt like she was dodging the topic rather than choosing a different direction.

Danforth has characterization skills well beyond those of a debut author. The characters were as vivid as biographical studies, full of the little details that bring a collection of words to life as people. The realness of all the characters made the telling of a simple story about real-life struggles all the more effective, all the more relatable for those who share Cameron’s struggles and all the more informative to those who don’t. The introduction of Adam Red Eagle and Jane Fonda in the second-half brought more diversity to the cast, and the strength of their friendship with Cameron was an uplifting end to a novel of her struggles.
I felt that the damage of gay conversion therapy was really only shown through Mark, he being an extreme case. Nobody else seemed to care much. I can understand the desire to present an ‘objective’ case of gay conversion therapy free of melodrama designed to sway opinion (as much as I wouldn’t have a problem with that anyway), but I didn’t feel that the stress and emotional damage such an environment would inflict on young adults was present in the characters who didn’t want to be there. They mostly just seemed annoyed to not be able to live their regular teenage lives rather than emotionally strained by the damaging concepts forced on them.

Danforth writes with a maturity not often found in the YA genre. While she doesn’t write in a lush, evocative style like Laini Taylor - a standout prose-crafter in YA - writing in a simple but engaging manner is just as difficult, if not more so. Danforth’s prose excelled in particular, for me, at creating atmosphere. Everytime I settled down to read I felt the environment of a hot, dusty small American farming city settle around me; despite the fact that where I live is absolutely nothing like that, and I have never even visited anywhere like that. The setting of Miles City, Montana, is author Emily Danforth’s hometown, and it shows in the intimate, effortless description of the city and its changing seasons, annual events, and the types of people who inhabit a place like Miles city. This is a phenomenal piece of literature in its own right, as a debut it’s a triumph.

Weaker points
Pacing (maybe)

Stronger points
Characters
Diversity/representation
Relationships
Themes
Prose
Setting
Atmosphere

Content/age appropriateness warnings: homophobia, drug use (weed), underage alcohol consumption, non-explicit sex, swearing, character death (only the parents), car accidents, self-harm/potential suicide attempt (not the main character)

THE GOLDEN MEAN by Annabel Lyon [4/5★]

Rating: 4/5 ★ | 80/100 | A-

Official Summary:
"As The Golden Mean opens, Aristotle is forced to postpone his dream of succeeding Plato as the leader of the Athenian Academy when Philip of Macedon asks him to stay on in his capital city of Pella to tutor his precocious son, Alexander. At first the philosopher is appalled to be stuck in the brutal backwater of his childhood, but he is soon drawn to the boy's intellectual potential and his capacity for surprise. What he does not know is whether his ideas are any match for the warrior culture that is Alexander's inheritance. But he feels that teaching this startling, charming, sometimes horrifying boy is a desperate necessity. And what the boy needs most to learn thrown before his time onto his father's battlefields - is the lesson of the golden mean, the elusive balance between extremes that Aristotle hopes will mitigate the boy's will to conquer. In her first novel, Annabel Lyon boldly imagines one of history's most intriguing relationships and the war at its heart between ideas and action as ways of knowing the world. She tells her story, breathtakingly, in the earthy, frank and perceptive voice of Aristotle himself. With sensual and muscular prose, she explores how Aristotle's genius touched the boy who would conquer the known world. And she reveals how we still live with the ghosts of both men."

Review:
Well, this is an entirely new exercise in reviewing for me. Here’s why:
I studied Classics at University for 5 years and have been obsessed, specifically, with Alexander the Great for 8 and a half years. You might think this puts me in the best position to review this book, instead it probably makes it harder. In my head I have stored the historical facts (or as close as we can get to them, at least) of Alexander’s life, the written portraits of him crafted by our remaining primary sources (Arrian, Curtius, Plutarch, Diodoros), and, most prominently (for better or worse), my own image of Alexander I have built up over these last 8 and a half years. Alexander is of course the most carefully and solidly rendered image, but I also have my own versions of many of the other characters featured in this book. It also means I knew exactly what all the major plot points were going to be, and even how things would carry on after the book ended. So reading this book, and any book like it, is an entirely different experience than being introduced to a new world and characters and gradually unfurling plot of the author’s creation. I have even put off reading most fictional portraits of Alexander until now (other than my favourite book, Mary Renault’s “Fire From Heaven”), because reading an interpretation that clashes with my own is both unsatisfying and greatly annoying because I am a delicate flower. (For example: in most of them he’s straight, inspiring in me an unholy rage that is not good for my blood pressure nor for the poor, fragile book itself.)

The book is narrated from Aristotle’s first-person perspective, beginning with his arrival in Macedonia after having lived in Atarneus (on the coast of modern-day Turkey) for the last 5 years. There are also two lengthy flashback chapters, one near the beginning about his childhood in Stageira and Pella, and another near the end about his time in Athens at the Academy. Conveying the mind of any notable historical figure is a daunting challenge, the mind of a great intellectual in a time so removed from our own is surely a Herculean task. (See what I did there.) Lyon settles into the mind of Aristotle gracefully, both as it develops and as he is developing the minds of others. He is not portrayed as an unnaturally mature child obviously destined for greatness, not even as a man finished with his tutelage under Plato is he some great paragon of intellect we are lucky to see inside the mind of. He is an entirely human character no matter his age, with self-acknowledged faults and regrets, aware of his own limitations and not begrudging others for theirs. He even seems mundane at times, rendered in the unflinching detail of ancient everyday life. He is an enjoyable narrator, complex but accessible.

Obviously 6 years is a lot of time to cover in a book that doesn’t set out to be a sprawling tome, but I found time flew by far too quickly in this novel. While Aristotle’s life outside of tutoring Alexander was interesting and enjoyable, it is hard not to view a lot of it as words that could have been spent on what lessons between Aristotle and Alexander we might have been reading instead. Including Alexander as a secondary character offers as many challenges as having him as your main character does. A figure of his historical magnitude is inevitably going to pull focus, even from a figure such as Aristotle. I wanted him to appear far more than he actually did, not just because he was Alexander, but because Lyon did succeed in creating her own Alexander that was interesting and complex. Not a perfect princeling but not an incorrigible brat either. I very much enjoyed how she handled his precociousness and oddness (nobody achieves on the scale that he did at the age he did without being precocious and odd, at the very least as a child, if not always). In particular, the incident with the head of Pentheus during the Bakkhai was pitch perfect. The way Alexander and Aristotle spoke and thought of one another towards the end also portrayed a relationship that I felt I hadn’t seen in the relatively few lessons and interactions between them that we were witness to, and the story’s resolution lost some of its desired emotional impact because of it. It would also have been better for promotional material (such as the summary on the back) to describe the book as the story of Aristotle’s life, part of which involved Alexander, rather than as Aristotle’s quest to educate Alexander, which didn’t actually play a major role.

In terms of other characters, I was delighted we got to spend some time with Arrhidaeus, a figure we don’t get to see much of in fiction. Hephaistion not seeming to have a mind of his own by Aristotle’s assessment was predictable and boring, but I’m used to living of scraps when it comes to his appearances so at least he was there. I enjoyed Olympias’ character but her sole two appearances don’t allow for much assessment - though I do want an entire book like the one scene she and Alexander shared, giving each other shit. Philip was what you would expect him to be in the time his character was allotted, though the glimpse of him as a youth was well-drawn and entertaining. Lysimachus clashed entirely with the image I have of him informed wholly by “Fire from Heaven”, and I don’t know what to think about that at all, so I’m just not going to. Pythias was the one historical figure I have had nothing to do with previously, though very little is known about her anyway. I found her intriguing and realistic, a woman in age but very like a girl due to the restricted life her society allowed her. Of the notable original characters, Althea was absolutely hilarious; “Hey fuck you” will be my go to response from now on. Both Carolus and Illaeus were the perfect encapsulation of non-elite but not entirely common men of this time period, their life experiences and burdens, successes and vices.

One of the strengths of this novel is the use of the medical and physiological beliefs of the time, including those which we know about from Aristotle himself via his surviving texts. To hear someone considered one of the greatest minds to ever live believing scientific theories that seem outrageous to the point of silliness compared to our modern knowledge is a fascinating reminder of the history of knowledge and discovery, how many centuries we have laboured to understand nature, the universe, the human body, even our own minds. There are multiple instances of physical and mental illness that allow us to play “guess the modern diagnosis”, which I find particularly enjoyable. Similarly, the use of the knowledge of Aristotle’s surviving texts in varying stages of consideration and completion throughout the novel was well-done, as well as the works of Plato. The Forms always give me a good chuckle.

I enjoyed the way the prose was written to reflect Aristotle’s scientific mind, cataloguing details and theories about people the way he would take field notes on an animal subject. How formal the prose and dialogue of a historical novel should be is a divided topic; to give you an idea of where I stand: I verily enjoyed Philip repeatedly calling Aristotle a “dumb shit”.

Now, as a Classicist, I am academically obliged to point out historical errors not mentioned in the author’s note. Indulge me, I can’t help myself. This novel mentions books a lot, when Greece BCE had nothing even approaching a book made of paper. They had scrolls made of paper - which are mentioned once as existing alongside books - on which they recorded permanent texts. This is a kind of Ancient Greece 101 type of fact, so the fact that it was not only incorrect, but frequently mentioned was a constant annoyance. And just to be a smarty-pants: Aristotle once mentions satire, which was a genre title not coined until the second century CE, around 500 years later. And now to be really nitpicky and correct not even the book but just the author’s note - Lyon says the Hephaistion “died in battle scant weeks before Alexander” when he actually died of illness (likely typhoid) near the end of 324 BCE, around 8 months before Alexander. (He’s my favourite so you can’t expect me to just let factual inaccuracies about him slide, okay?)

I don’t have the mental energy to work out how a reader coming in to this novel totally new might enjoy it; someone that doesn’t already know the foundation of these “characters” so well, that doesn’t know exactly what the major plot points will be, how the novel will end, and what will come after. It’s well-executed, it’s accurate, it’s interesting and not at all difficult to read, especially at only (roughly) eighty-thousand words long. Personally, I’m reasonably sure it’s my first step in reading most of the Alexander fiction out there. Most of which, like I said above, I know for a fact will kindle unholy rage in me; some of them already have done without me even reading them.
Wish me luck.

Content/age appropriateness warnings: well it’s the ancient world and you probably know what they were like… swearing, character death, slavery, misogyny, prostitution, what we would call pedophilia, semi-explicit sex, war/bloody wounds/death, human and animal dissection, a severed head...

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor [4.2/5★]

Review summary: The stunning originality that YA often promises but mostly doesn't deliver

Official summary
“Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?”

Review
Wow, what a book. When it comes to popular YA books “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” is a title I’d heard so many times over the years (it was released in 2011) that when I finally decided to dive in to that long, long list of titles, I don’t think I even read the summary. And I’m glad I didn’t, because going in to this book totally blind, with no preconceived notions of what to expect, made it all the more thrilling a journey. In a genre of fiction rife with recycled, uninspired, and underdeveloped premises, plots, and worlds - Daughter of Smoke and Bone creates a totally unique and intricate world and meticulously renders it to the reader with detail and care. So much so, that I don’t want to even slightly spoil any more of it than you may already know from the summary, if you haven’t read this book. The rest of this review is all spoilers, so go read the book and then come back, if you feel so inclined.

Mild spoilers follow. Major spoilers are inside spoiler tags.

I loved everything about the world-building and characters. Even after my warning above I still feel the need to be as unspoliery as possible on these two fronts, among the most original and fantastic I have read in fiction, and I feel that I don’t have anything unique enough to say about them that warrants listing all of their secrets here.
On the setting, I will say: I love stories set in our world but with magical elements, rather than being plunged headfirst into a fantasy world and trying to get a grip on that brand new setting at the same time you’re learning the plot and characters. So while I was mildly disappointed this novel didn’t stay as a story set in our world with magical elements, the progression from our world with magic to the land of Eretz filled with Chimera and Angels was well-handled, taking what we expected and twisting it into something else entirely.
Helping to bring such interesting and unique characters and settings to life was Taylor’s gorgeous prose. Taylor writes in such a descriptive and emotional way that no moment felt dull or pointless. It made her characters accessible, her fantastic creations believable, the relationships deep and moving. The only time I had any problem with the prose was during fight scenes, intentionally written in short bursts of sentences to create a sense of action that I instead found stilted and repetitive.

The book often teeters on the line between original and quirky~. If you have a decent familiarity with the Young Adult genre you’ll know what I mean by “quirky~”. If not...count yourself lucky. The quirky~ aspect of this novel is, at least, not of the standard variety where the protagonist actually tells us how quirky~ they are and that they have no friends because of it - they’re just too unique for other people (high probability it’s actually because they’re insufferable). Rather, Taylor wants to create something unique, something with original details, its very own atmosphere that sets it apart. If you want your novel to be different then straying into cringe territory is just a risk you have to run. I’d rather author’s take that risk and create something unique, though a little cringey every now and then, than create something that plays it safe and, as a result, is something we’ve all seen before.
So if you find yourself rolling your eyes at how different and mysterious~ Karou is in the first couple of chapters, push on; there’s a good reason for all of it.

As delightfully original as Daughter of Smoke and Bone is, it does fall into cliche in one very major area. And the fall is, unfortunately, a very hard one.
The grand romance of Karou and Akiva is just...well, here’s a brief summary of what it had me thinking a lot of the time:

Karou or Akiva: *says they love the other*
Me: “Ya’ll just met!!!”

The scourge of the Young Adult genre…instalove.
Everyone has their own time period in which two characters falling in love is considered “instalove”, based on your perceptions and experiences with love. If they fall in love the very first time they meet - it doesn’t get any quicker than that: definitely instalove. The second time: hardly any better. A week: I hardly even notice one passing. A month: I’ve procrastinated making phone calls longer than that, that ain’t enough time to fall in love! Personally anything less than seeing each other regularly for like...6 months is too soon for me, but I can recognize that a novel has certain time constraints and make allowances.
Unfortunately for Karou and Akiva, love was in the air literally the second time they met, which I absolutely cannot make allowances for.
There is, however, a twist to this relationship.

When the reincarnation gave them a good reason to be in love so quickly in the present story I was relieved, but then we actually got the story of the first time they fell in love as Madrigal and Akiva and it was...basically the same situation. r.i.p And saying they fell in love a second time as Karou and Akiva was well pushing it.

If the narrative had just eased up on the perfect, all consuming, world-altering nature of their love based on a relationship without much substance, I wouldn’t have minded so much. I do actually like them together, after all. Although they’re an angel and a ‘devil’ and therefore operating on a grander plane than we mere mortals, and there’s a destiny~ element to their love emphasized throughout not just this novel, but the rest of the series - a boy and a girl meeting and falling in love immediately and going to drastic lengths for each other is one of the oldest tales there is, and so many of us are just BORED of it. BORED!!! It honestly pains me to lower the rating of this book purely because of the romance, because that’s how much I loved it anyway. But all that creativity and originality just serves to make such a cliche standout and disappoint even more. I recently found out that Taylor even does the exact same thing in her next novel series, that is otherwise spectacular. Why, Laini? WHY???

The telling of Karou’s original life as Madrigal basically cleaves the novel in half; whether you find that interesting or unbearable will be a matter of personal taste, as I’ve seen a lot of different opinions (mostly negative) about the use of extensive or long flashbacks in storytelling. Personally I love flashbacks, even extensive ones. Maybe even especially extensive ones. It does disrupt what we expect from traditional novel pacing and I was anxious to get back to the main story, obviously not knowing at the time that this extensive flashback was basically the rest of the novel.

As an added bonus, not only is “X of Y and Z” such an overdone title construction by now, but many authors also use this and similar constructions with a bunch of flowery words that don’t actually mean anything important to the story, world, or characters. I fully expected that to be the case here, so when Karou turned out to LITERALLY be the daughter of smoke and bone I was STOKED for a title that actually had significance.

Though a more accurate title would be “Daughter of Smoke and Teeth”, that just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, you know? I forgive Laini Taylor for going with the more poetic word choice.

While I don’t want to go into them in depth and they weren’t major sources of trouble for me, I did have a few issues with issues that affect female characters. The attitudes towards virginity were very “old-fashioned”, and I found the scenes of Madrigal, being forced into sexualised clothing a situations she was deeply uncomfortable with being portrayed as okay because her “friends” were the ones forcing her, also very uncomfortable for me reading them.

Overall this review is useless, but the book is amazing. For all the YA books that claim to do something new and amazing but do nothing of the sort, this one certainly fulfills its promise. I greatly look forward to finishing the series and reading Taylor’s future work.

Weaker points:
Romance
Corniness (slight)
Problematic elements (slight)
Pacing (slight)

Stronger points:
Character
Plot
Prose
World building
Originality
Atmosphere
Settings

Content/age appropriateness warnings: character death, non-explicit torture, implied/non-explicit sex, war, injury/blood etc, and lots and lots of teeth (I’ve come across more than a few people entirely grossed out by them lol)