Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Lani Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Lani Taylor

Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Lani Taylor
Little, Brown and Company, 2011

Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a book that I picked up and really wanted to like. A strong female lead with a mysterious past trained in a variety of skills from martial arts to foreign languages and a unique setting in the city of Prague had me hopeful for something new and exciting. Daughter of Smoke and Bone is that new and exciting thing to a certain extent but at the same time there is a sense of overwrought emotional melodrama that seems to pervade the entire novel. Laini Taylor opens things up with a tongue in cheek scene involving our blue-haired lead Karou and her now ex-boyfriend, it seems he runs “vampire” tours of Prague playing up on the current vampire craze that prevails in popular culture. I rather enjoyed the playful stab at the vampire theme so prevelavent in the Young Adult demographic. It manages to provide a knowing head nod without managing to feel like mockery.