1/30: Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Read from December 11, 2012 to January 02, 2013
Format: Hardcover

From Goodreads: Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

I hate writing bad reviews. Especially for books in a series where I loved the first book. Daughter of Smoke and Bone was fabulous and I couldn't wait to read this one. There was something unique about the series.

I got bored with the second one. It didn't move fast enough and I found that I skimmed dialogue for the last half of it. Karou also became incredibly annoying in this one. Perhaps there was too much time between the two books for me to really remember her pain and betrayal, but it seemed like she was holding onto something that was so far in the past that it made little difference in the here and now.

The gore and torture and descriptions were a little over the top for a YA book. As an adult, I found a lot of it disturbing, and I usually have no problem with that sort of thing. There was several scenes in the book where I had to put it down and say "gross, I didn't need to picture that".  I'm not a mom, but I am an aunt and I would never let me my niece or nephew read this one just based on the gore alone.

I did appreciate the theme that good and evil does not necessarily mean good and bad. It showed a side to both the Seraphim and the Chimera that blurred the lines of who was good or bad. It showed greed and what it can do to a complete race.

I don't plan to read the next one when it comes out.

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