Audio Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

by: Laini Taylor

Publication Date: September 27, 2011
Finished on: March 5, 2018
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Narrator: Khristine Hvam

This review is for the audiobook (Audible) version of Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

Synopsis:
Daughter of Smoke in Bone is book 1 in a series by Laini Taylor.  The Goodreads synopsis is copied below:

"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 grown 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 review:
I wanted to love Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.  I really enjoyed Strange the Dreamer (also an audiobook read for me!) and was hoping that this one would invoke similar feelings. 

At its heart, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a story of forbidden love with fantasy thrown into the mix.  You can read a lot into the themes of war and who is good versus evil.  Daughter of Smoke and Bone seemed to concentrate primarily on the romantic plot.  I would have loved more elaborate world building (there were so many opportunities!) and more development of the characters.  In my opinion, Taylor delivered the more elaborate world building with Strange the Dreamer. While I still look forward to her future works, I think I'll pass on the earlier ones for now.

Overall, I rate this 3/5 stars.  I felt like the audio performance was fine, but that the overall story was lacking.  It felt predicable and the plot line was slow.  I will not be continuing the series.