Review: "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor

I am not going to go all filosophical about this review. This is mainly my own opinion of the book and why you should go buy it...NOW.

A short summary

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she's prone to disappearin on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually gros 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? - Credit: Goodreads.com

The Good

I could go on forever about what I love about this book, but for your sake I am going to control myself.

The story

It is unlike anything I have ever read before. First of all I think I should explain: I am not a huge fan of the urban fantasy genre. But this book has changed my opinion on that! I did not know a lot about the story going into it, but once I started reading - and I mean right from the first page - I was hooked. 

The characters

I. Want. To. Be. Karou. It is that simple. I love her. She is funny, quick on her feet, funny, smart, she has friggin' blue hair. BLUE. After reading this I want to colour my hair teal and get matching tattoos.

I may not be Karou - yet atleast *wink, wink* -, but we share the same love for Akiva. He is perfect. But not in a "he could never be real" kind of way. I know that he isn't real, but in the world of the book he seems real. Laini Taylor made me believe he was possible. And I understand their relationship... maybe not at the beginning, but keep reading and you'll figure it out. And you will feel so smart while screaming "I KNEW IT!"... I totally didn't do that...

Sulfur... He's like...I mean... he's Sulfur. He is so caring and lovable... even if he is a monster - fysically -, he has the biggest heart in this book. At least in my opinion.

There are a lot of other characters in the story, but these are just some of my personal favorite. I liked all the characters, and I actually remember them all, which says a lot.

The setting

As I said this is an urban fantasy story, which if you don't know, means that it takes place in our world but implies fantasy elements. This book does that in a wonderful way. The main setting is in Prague. Even though I have never been to Prague, I could get an impression of the environment around Karou. It was almost like I was there myself. But we don't just get to spend a weekend in Prague. Oh no. We go To Paris, Marrakech and the fantastical world of Eretz, or "Elsewhere". Everything is described in a detailed, yet amusing, way, It doesn't get boring reading about these places because Laini Taylor has an amazing gift of voices.

The Bad

Okay so trust me, when I say; it was super hard finding something wrong with this book.

But if I had to say ONE thing I didn't like...or could have gone without... it was the cliffhanger at the end. I am really not found of cliffhangers. Like Brandon Sanderson says: "Write a standalone book with sequel potentiel, not a sequel dependent book." okay... not a direct qoute, but that was pretty much what he said! And I fully agree on this. 

That said, I am going to buy the 2nd book once it comes out in Danish. No question there. 

So yeah... I am not a master reviewer, but there you have it!

When it comes to my own writing; I am exactly 3/5 through with the editing! Only 10 chapters to go and I can start my 2nd draft! I seriously can't wait.

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna.

The end? Of course not...

Week one of NaNoWriMo is officially over. If you have survived; Congratulaiton! You are one of the lucky few with your sanity intact...or not. 

NaNoWriMo day #7 - wordgoal: 11667 -

So this was actually one of my lowest wordcounts so far doing NaNo. I only wrote a little over 3k words, but for some reason I just did not care that much. My totalt wordcount for November 7th was 48.800 words. This meant that I knew, I would be able to finish on November 8th! I was so excited that I put the words into a Word-document to see, how many pages I had written. 107 pages. It really got me pumped to write even more on the 8th. But The main reason why I think I did not care about my wordcount for the day was; I really love my story. Everything I just love. I love to write it, and if I have to be honest, it is the kind of story I would love to read.

NaNoWriMo day #8 - wordgoal: 13333 - 

So I had 1½ hours of free time doing school, so I decided to write. And you guessed it. I hit 50k! On November 8th I won NaNoWriMo 2013! I wrote 50k in one week, which at the beginning of the month was my unrealistic goal. I ended up writing about 3k more words that day which left me with a wordcount of 53.846 words. However, even though I have won NaNoWriMo, I am not even half way done with my novel. Last year I only aimed to write 50k, but this year I want to actually finish a novel. I want the first draft to be 100 % complete by November 30th. Now I am positive it is going to happen, but I am not going to be writing another 50k this coming week. With NaNo and school, it just got so stressful. So I am from now on just going to write as much as I can manage every day. I will no longer let it interfere with my school work. And maybe I will be able to get some sleep.

NaNoWriMo day #9 - wordgoal: 15000 -

So now we have come to today; I wrote from when I woke till now, and I managed to cross the 60k mark. Now I did have 20 minutes breaks between each of my 1k words, and I could have easily written 10k today, but I am happy with my 8.275 words. This brought my total to 62.118 words, which in a Word-document is the same as 136 pages.

Here is my graf:

Please notice all the green bars. They make me feel good about myself. Never in a million years did I imagine myself writing 50k in one week. Next year; 50k weekend, and the year after that 50k on day one. Yeah...right. I would be dead.

No matter how far above or behind of the wordgoal you are, I believe that you can make it to that 50k finish line! Hell, if I can, ANYone can. Trust me. Writing takes dedication, and if you are willing to put enough of it into your work, you will have a novel by the 30th.

Keep Calm and Write On.

- Nanna.