Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

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—andwhat 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?


Rating: 5/5 Stars

“We can’t expect the world to be better than we make it.”

I always seem to find it incredibly hard to talk about books I like. Stories that bored me, enraged me, or did something in between those lines are a lot easier for me to find things to discuss. But what can I say when I did liked it? Or loved it? For some reason I can never find the right words because I know that what I liked was personal, saying it out loud somehow feels as if I were trying to convince people to love it the same way I do (Yes Yes Yes I know I’m not right in the head).

It’s silly really, I’m a reviewer I should tell people when I like a book, right? And yet… when I don’t like them I enjoy writing long rants that are mostly a way for me to just let everything out of my system and not really believing people will read my review or take it seriously. But if I were to say why I did love a story… well that’s another thing altogether, because I know that what I see in it it’s not the same that other people do, and that not everybody is going to love it as I did. I guess I fear people won’t see the exact same as I do and be disappointed?

I honestly don’t know, if I did I probably would have fixed it by now or… learned how to fake it, or something. I’m rambling. What matters is, I loved Days of Blood and Starlight but can’t tell you whether you’ll love it too, or hate it, or something in between.

For me, the essence of this book is the quote above; in a world plague by war and desolation, do you follow the same path as before or worse, or dare to dream of a better world and make it so? It’s about choices and the lack of them. How can you forgive the enemy when it has taken everything from you? How can you be forgiven when you take in kind?

The end of this book gives a little hope and takes some too. It’ll be up to the third to decide how it ends, but regardless I’m pretty sure it’ll be fantastic and heartbreaking as fuck.