I’d previously rage-quit reading anything even remotely YA because I just can’t with the contrived drama, and the angst, and the dopey, sappy, first time love, and the Mary Sues. The fact that this book manages to have so much depth filled with amazing characters arcs while also having a deeply engrossing plot with great twists? The futility of it is so obvious in literature, like this book, but why are we so blind to it in real life? In this we get more of the other characters and everyone needs Zuzana and Mik even if you don't know you do. The big theme of this book, the one that kept resonating with me, was the futility of violence and the longing for compassion and mercy and peace.

The fire seems to be gone out of her for a while as she resigns herself to being a necessary albeit unwanted and resented player in the game - a puppet to be tolerated until she can be replaced. Partway through this book, Karou somewhat heavy-handedly reminds us that Daughter of Smoke and Bone was the story of Romeo and Juliet + genocide, which, duh. OHMIGOD I CANT W8 I CANT I REALLY CANT AHHHHH OMGOMGOMG THIS IS GOING 2 TAKE 4EVER ND I WANT IT NOW! You kill and kill, and at first it’s fulfilling, but then you’re like, “this really isn’t getting me laid the way I thought it would, even though I got these eyes of fire and a dreamy widow’s peak and, like, shawls fulla moth-birds I picked up at Hot Topic.Jael then commands that white robes and harps be given to everyone in an attempt to invade the human world and make the chimaera look evil for trying to fight the holy angels.

Take up a weapon and you become an instrument with as pure a purpose as the weapon itself: to find arteries and open them, limbs and sever them; to take what is alive and deliver it unto death. Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a new way of living—one without massacres and torn throats and bonfires of the fallen, without revenants or bastard armies or children ripped from their mothers’ arms to take their turn in the killing and dying. It also makes no sense to me because romantic feelings (especially early, fiery romance) are like a delicate collectible unicorn figurine, and grief is like a jackhammer.

That is until Akiva confesses to killing the only family that she had ever known while mourning for her, which includes Brimstone, Issa, Twiga, and Yasri, who raised and protected her for her entire life. Heartbroken, Karou leaves Akiva in Prague and heads through a portal to Eretz with the Fallen angel, Razgut. I feel like her finally knowing who she is, and what she is, allows her to gain the power she lacked in the first book.

Taylor doesn't just like to rip things apart, she bloody well SHREDS them and scatters the remaining pieces into the wind. Part of me would love to see a film version of the series (if done well), but another part of me fears it could never live up to the book and the images it conjures in the reader's mind. Neither Karou nor Akiva is at fault here and Taylor makes us see this so clearly in this piece that now, it is impossible to know in what direction the story will head.Both Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Days of Blood and Starlight unfold in a sequence of events driven by fate, by destiny, and not entirely by choice, much like our own lives. The world we saw in the first book is built upon and built upon until you feel like you are looking at this vast empire of angels versus demons. This book, though, was a whole book full of manic pixie dream girls dabbling in genocide and then gazing at each other. Trying to resurrect his character by romanticizing what he did felt cheap and disrespectful in this one. The aftermath of the war is continuing with seraphim killing innocent chimaera and the Revenants responding by cutting smiles into dead seraphim faces.

Here, he's an incredibly compelling character; a character who's made huge mistakes and owns up to them. 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. Akiva is with his seraphim brethren at their camp as they formulate their next plan for attack, whilst Karou is trying to salvage what little is left of the chimaera race by undertaking Brimstone’s past responsibilities as the resurrectionist.However, Karou and Akiva's denseness about obvious things really irritated me and felt like padding and as with the first book, there isn't a huge amount of plot here. Zuzanah freaks out because she cannot get a hold of Karou and is worried that she is dead, until there are news reports about someone going around stealing teeth from museums. do not be expecting any of the sweetness and light of the first book - this is a different and much darker story. In all other aspects though, Laini Taylor has surpassed my wildest expectations and written a novel that I can claim, in full confidence, that is far, far better than its predecessor. While we are taken on a mind blowing journey when this world unravels in our minds in Daughter of Smoke and Bone, its sequel doesn't have the magic of learning the world, the fascination of experiencing for the first time what Laini has created.