The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Book:  The Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1) by Laini Taylor, 2011 by Little, Brown & Company, 417 pages.

Synopsis from Goodreads:
Around the world, black handprints 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 otherwordly 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 one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored 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? 

My Thoughts:
This book is so beautifully written that I often found myself stopping to savour a passage.  Taylor has a way with words that is poetic at times.

And then, there's the story.  I was drawn in right from the start with the story of Karou, an unusual, and in many ways, mysterious girl living and going to art school in Prague.  However, she has a hidden life, her family of chimaera, who live a world apart.  This is the story of finding out who she is, for both the readers and Karou herself.

I loved the sense of adventure in this book, and the descriptions of the chimaera and their world were wonderful.  There is also a romance with Akiva that is pulled off really well.  Taylor weaves the story between them, their present and their pasts so well that it is seamless.

I highly recommend this book, especially to those who like young adult fantasy.  I raced right through this one and can't wait for the second one to come out.

Here is the book trailer from YouTube: