This is a question I ask myself every time I read a magic realism! Do I enjoy it? Is this a genre I enjoy? 

When I look at other members of the book community there are two clear sides: those who absolutely love magical realism and would fight to death over it and those who don’t! I know there are a few people in the middle like me but most people tend to be one side or the other, which is what I want to figure out – which side am I?

I enjoy magical realism for the – well – magical parts of it and how the author manages to weave magic into our mundane world. I love seeing what authors come up with and whether they go for a subtle approach or a full-on, in your face approach. 

But the flip side of my relationship with magical realism is often it’s very confusing and I don’t actually see how the ‘magical’ parts relate. Because the magical realism world is often built quite ‘trickly’, I find it difficult to understand what’s real and what’s not – especially when the author writes it in a way to intend that! 

And that’s pretty much how I felt about Bone Gap by Laura Ruby! 

So I’m sure by now you have all heard of Caraval by Stephanie Garber! It’s her debut novel and it has been such an anticipated release on everyone’s lists since mid-2016 to early-2017.

People have been going crazy over this book because:

a) it has such a gorgeous cover + there are 5 editions you can collect. Both the UK and the US editions are absolutely gorgeous and the paperback and hardbacks too!

b) is it sounds absolutely amazing! It has been compared to the Night Circus

c) those that got ARCs of it in late 2016 were absolutely RAVING about it!

Along with just a review, I also decided to spice things up a little by making Caraval inspired red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting!

After the enormously pleasing response I got on Frostblood, I have decided to incorporate more baking into my book blog because it’s so nice to be able to share all these delicious recipes with you all! I also love being able to put my creativity to use in making some bookish inspired sweet treats!

Let’s get started!

*waves dramatically*

It’s only been a week but I missed this so much! So I bet you are all wondering why the heck I went from a consistent blogging schedule to completely AWOL and that is because school just started this Wednesday and I was instantly swamped with work and I didn’t have any pre-written posts ready so it was a mess.

But I am working on having a few pre-written posts ready so I (hopefully!) will not be stuck in a position where I go a week or two without posting because I want to aim to post at least once or twice a week!

Today I am bringing to you a review of the Daughter Of Smoke And Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor which consists of Daughter Of Smoke And Bone, Days Of Blood And Starlight and Dreams Of Gods And Monsters.

I hadn’t heard a HUGE amount about this book but I knew it was popular and loved by many people so I wanted to try it! I also wanted to read it before Taylor’s next book Strange The Dreamer came out in March!

This review is going to be set out a little differently where I am going to chat about each book separately rather than the usual structured review I do because I feel it’ll work MUCH better for what I want to say about this trilogy!

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE: BOOK 1

So I thought this was an absolutely stunning, mind blowing, beautiful, let’s make a shrine for it kinda book and I cannot recommend it enough! The writing was so whimsical and dreamy and poetic and aha I was in love. Everything about it was beautiful from the cover (which gave me the creeps but in the best way possible!) to the characters, the plot and of course the writing.

I felt the idea of this book was so fantastic. AND THE SETTING! I mean how many books do you read that are set in Prague? It just added that super mystical and mysterious element to it!

I don’t read a lot of magic realism but the way Taylor combined aspects of the real world with concepts from mythology and fiction was so intricate yet at the same time so easy to keep up with and enjoy! Same goes to the plot.

I liked how Taylor just threw us into the book and didn’t have a lot of explanation at the beginning. Rather she got ahead with the story and the explanations came after. The mystery elements of this story were also amazing because it was impossible to guess what was going to happen next because you were just always on your toes!

Aha, the characters! I have never loved characters more in a book. From the main characters (which I don’t always end up loving) to the side characters, everyone was loveable. Even though I am NOTHING like Karou, I still connected with her because it was easy to love her and even easier to feel for her. Akiva, my precious cinnamon roll! How can I put into words how much I love Akiva?

I don’t tend to read books with angels and demons because I have been burnt very badly by some of them before *cough* Fallen *cough* Hush Hush *cough* Unearthed *cough*  where while I didn’t hate them (and might have even enjoyed some) they just leave me super confused with all the technical terms and all that mumbo-jumbo but this book explained everything so simply and easily and it was literally a breeze.

It’s safe to say I very, very much loved this book.

OVERALL RATING:

DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT: BOOK 2

So getting into this, I had heard from friends that after the first book the rest just kinda go downhill but I was very reluctant to believe them because I wanted it to be good after the amazingness that was the first book.

But sadly, I was disappointed.

This just fell flat for me for a number of reasons.

It was draggy. Not much happened in a 500 page book and the fact that it was so long made me want to pull my hair out in frustration because WHYYYYY??? Why would you write a 500 page book in which nothing happens?

It didn’t capture my attention at all. There was none of that magic that was present in the first book for me. Akiva is barely in the book and it just felt so disjointed and boring for me. The chemistry that was present between Akiva and Karou just dissipated and I didn’t feel anything for them anymore.

The multiple POVs didn’t work really well for me at least because it just created so much waiting (not even angst – it was waiting) until I could find out what happened. I was introduced to new characters that I wasn’t able to form connections with and instead of being something I loved, they came a hindrance to me as I had to get through their chapter before getting back to characters I did care (sort of!) about.

The good thing is Zuze though! Zuzana is Karou’s best friend and she is literally a ball of sunshine! She brought in so much light heartedness and fun to the book and became one of my fav characters. But even with her, I was unable to connect sadly. And there is a really good plot twist in here that I was NOT expecting.

Also did I mention this book is pretty huge? It took me 3 days to read, which is slow for me especially during the holidays and I felt absolutely no satisfaction by the end of it.

But I continued to the third book in the hopes that at least something would happen.

OVERALL RATING:

DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS: BOOK 3

What the heck even happened in this book? <<<< basically the one sentence needed to sum up my thoughts on this.

This book started off strongly and was much more interesting than the second one but it’s even longer being 700 pages which is practically a brick (also probably the size of Empire Of Storms by Sarah J Maas).

I was getting more into it, especially during the middle and I was beginning to form (some) attachments to the characters again. There were some action-packed scenes which I LOVED and Mik and Zuze made everything so much fun with their relentless enthusiasm and positivity!

But it wasn’t enough to counteract the negatives such as the pacing which was WAYYYYYY off. There were some extremely dry, ‘I wanna bang my head against the wall’ moments and it really, really diverted from the first book.

You’ll know by now that I ADORED the first book so it diverting from there made me miss the first book a lot. Where was the ‘Karou, the art student in Prague’ narrative? It went so off topic that by the end of the third book I couldn’t even believe they were part of the same series!

And you know how I said the first book was super easy to understand and la de dah. Yeah…nope.

I wasn’t able to keep up with what was happening, the technical terms were just flying off the top of my head, I had no idea what was happening, it was such a mess. I began to skim read parts just so I could get to the end because none of it was catching my attention, the romance was so spotty and odd and barely there and almost forced.

Also, can we talk about the Eliza chapters? I still don’t understand what she was there for! (PS this is not a spoiler it’s literally the first chapter of the book!). I skim read her parts because there was 0 explanation as to why she was there and by the time I found out, I no longer cared.

Basically I was left feeling super unsatisfied because I had to go from DOSAB which I LOVED SO MUCH to DOBAS which was super dry to DOGAM which I didn’t understand.

OVERALL RATING:

FINALLY…

There are some very mixed reviews on this trilogy because some people loved it and others, like me, had no idea what was going on. I’m not sure why exactly I didn’t understand everything but it got super boring and draggy and dull for me that I didn’t even have the energy to try.

I know this review went from gushing to ranting and I’m sorry but this series really frustrated me because I went from loving loving loving to just not having any idea what was happening.

If you wanna take my advice, read the first book and just leave it at that because it explains everything and the second two books were really unnecessary.

But, in the end, it is your choice after all. 

Have you read this trilogy? What did you think? Did you agree or disagree with me?

Thank you to Hachette Australia for sending me review copies of this trilogy. However all thoughts and opinions are my own and this is an honest review.