Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor
Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone (#3)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5)
By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz.
Common enemy, common cause.
When Jael’s brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people.
And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love.
But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz … something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world.
What power can bruise the sky?
From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy.
At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?
From the beginning of Daughter of Smoke and Bone I knew that Laini Taylor has a beautiful writing voice. Lyrical and expressive, I couldn’t get enough of reading her prose.
Until now.
There are a couple of things that make this book not as good as the first two (which I LOVED beyond compare). The aforementioned prose is here in abundance – what I once thought I could never get enough of…well, there were places I was skimming. 4-Kindle-click-pages of description on a feeling of Karou’s, a feeling that is then summed up in a single sentence? It was a mite too much in some places.
Then there’s the brand new character, introduced out of the blue and only the vaguest conception that she’s important to the overall story somehow. I spent the first quarter of the book reassuring myself that she had some important role to play. She just had to. After that I started skimming her sections. Blah, blah, blah – take me back to Karou and Akiva. Haven’t they suffered enough by now? Can’t they just have a freaking moment alone, to themselves?
For crying out loud! The tension of them getting together nearly killed me! Talk about suspense. Laini Taylor does love to put obstacles in their way – that’s for sure.
Then there was the feeling that there was just too much going on! The war, Jael, the humans, chimaera and seraphim working together?, Stelians, Eliza, this, that and the other! Jeez.
By the end I didn’t even feel like it was an ending. Sure I can imagine a bit out ahead for my beloved Karou and Akiva (and some other strongly shipped characters!!), but not too far because there’s something so completely monumental thrown into the story near the end! I can’t say much more without spoiling it, but I feel like I won’t know the end of the story until I know the resolution of that. Honestly, I feel that if some of this story had been pulled out through some of the previous books, or something, it would have worked better. Here it felt crammed in and just too much.
I sound like I’m complaining a lot. And I am – kind of – but I had very, very, very high expectations of this book. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver on all of them. This is still a good book, and a decent ending to the series. I’d still definitely recommend the series to just about everyone. It’s fantastic. It just got a bit away at the ending.
Leave a Reply