Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke and Bone

[tabacoychanel]

There’s been so much buzz about this book and its sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight. Also it’s set in Prague so I was sold. This review will contain spoilers - not, like, major revelations that will indelibly mar your enjoyment of the book, but you have to understand that for the first 50 pages we just follow Karou, her sketchbook and her art

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

I've seen mixed reviews about this book elsewhere. On the one hand, Prague! fantasy species relations/politics/conflict. On the other hand, the romance aspect -- the way it's done, I mean -- sounds like something that would probably annoy me.

Points in the book's favor, from what I gather: using the actual singular of "seraph" instead of "seraphim" (it drives me nuts when books don't, which is apparently not that rare :/

[tabacoychanel]

Well, it kind of bothered me and i think i have a higher tolerance for such things than you do. But the central romantic relationship isn't even the half of it. Like there's actually a pretty rigid class hierarchy among chimaera, wherein those of 'high-human aspect' meaning human heads/torsos are considered objectively more attractive or whatever, and this leads to a scenario where sisters are backstabbing each other because one of them (the high-human one obviously) is being courted by the Prince of the Realm, and the other one isn't. Because she has a tiger's head. And yeah it's more complicated than that but I get really uncomfortable when women are shown as petty creatures who will do anything to ~get a man. Both sisters are like that (the pretty one falls for a seraph), and while I think it's pretty shabby to betray your sister, I'm less inclined to be mad at the ugly sister than to urge solidarity at them both. Because this isn't an isolated incident, it feeds into the overarching message of the book that LOVE WILL SAVE US ALL.

[hamsterwoman]

Well, it kind of bothered me and i think i have a higher tolerance for such things than you do.

I suspect you do :P

Like literally interspecies love is going to save the world.

Uh. (Not that I haven't enjoyed stuff which boiled down to something similar, but it seems kinda skeevy in combination with what you say about the human-like vs animal-like chimaeras...)

[tabacoychanel]

speaking of which (well not really b/c it's not a dystopia but it's kind of disturbing how many items on that list i was nodding vigorously at)

[hamsterwoman]

That's a pretty great list! And not just for YA, let's be honest. (Although I confess I have a huge thing for fantasy racism, done well.)