Daughter of Smoke and Bones by Laini Taylor

Brilliant, completely and utterly brilliant.

Student by day and errand girl by night, Karou lives a seemingly normal life as a 17 yr old art student, filling her many sketch books with hundreds of images of mismatched creatures... monsters.
Unbeknownst to all, these creatures are real, and Karou herself is the errand girl for one of the most majestic of them all. Brimstone.

With azure hair, a myriad of different languages and a kick-ass personality, Karou traverses the world purchasing teeth for Brimstone, for reasons unknown. Bear teeth, wolf teeth, lion teeth, elephant tusks and human teeth, all strung up around Brimstone's mystifying store, gradually disappearing without an answer.

Although Karou feels as if she's missing something, she is intent on living her life as it is, but others do not. All around the world, black handprints are appearing, scorched into their surroundings. Something is amiss and when Karou sets her eyes on a hauntingly familiar face, belonging to a man she has never before met, she intuitively knows that he is somehow part of it.

With eyes of burning fire and wings of softest feathers, the angel strips away Karou's defences and her past begins to unravel.

YES! I haven’t had a book like this in a while, THANK YOU Laini Taylor for granting us mere humans this awesome story... we are not worthy.
Hahaha

Ok. So... where to begin... Aha! Le Characters.
So obviously we have Karou, brilliant name! You usually judge a character by the name... well at least I do. Karou...It’s so, so fitting... it means Hope apparently, only it sounds epic. It drew me in from the start, a character named Karou with azure hair and sketchbooks filled with drawings of magical creatures. I can tell you now, the book just wouldn’t have been the same if she was called Britney **eugh** no offence to those with the name...

Karou is such a different character compared to the countless helpless teenage girls, waiting for their true loves to sweep in and save their skinny ass’, excuse my language, not naming any names **coughBellaSwancough**
ahem, wow, that was one cough, I don’t know what overcame me... Anywho, back to the point. Karou is none of the damsel-in-distress-poopie that everyone is selling, she’s got a kickass personality and don’t even get me started on her fighting abilities.

She’s knowledge on several martial arts, sword fighting thingies etc. She is simply awesome. Being as awesome as she is, she doesn’t flaunt it either, she just lives her life as the mysterious girl. Telling the truth if asked but adding a wry smile at the end. ‘Course she’s also quite funny, creating itches in the most inappropriate of places by wishing on “scuppies”, ha, I got several stares laughing at the bus stop... **sigh** again...

The other characters are also very well created, all different. I have to say, one of my favourite characters has to be Zuzana, the rabid pixie-like best friend of Karou’s, she’s got to be one of the funniest and entertaining non-main characters I've read about in a while.

Akiva, yet another awesome name, I really have to commend Laini Taylor on her awesome seletion of names. Anyway, Akiva, I can’t say that he was as amazing as Karou, but he wasn’t too bad. He’s a bit like the other mysterious, beautiful angels that have been written about in many other books, but the one thing that made him stand out is his story, the reason as to why he is so broken. EPIC!

The plot, woah!, words cannot do it justice! It was amazing, it’s has been far too long since an author managed to create something so original and brilliant, though I had hunches along the way, nothing could have prepared me for how it would eventually turn out. **screams** IT WAS SO GOOD... The presence of Angels or more specifically Serphim in the book was excellent, personally I love stories with angels, and the fact that angels were in Daughter of Smoke and Bone was a huge bonus. Now. now, I get to the splendid part. Chimera, Laini Taylor wrote a book with Chimera, wow. This was my first ever Chimera book and it was downright amazing. The idea was just so unique!

I love the dialogue, and the way the story is written. Love the language, the way the speech sounds quite natural and relaxed, if that were the right word.
I think I’ll be obsessed with this book for a while; it’d be odd if I weren’t.

I AM COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS TIL THE SECOND BOOK!!!!