Once upon a time, an angel and a devil pressed their hands to their hearts,
and started the Apocalypse.
Hello everyone!
You know, I'm feeling quite accomplished today. Not taking into account my feeling a bit like a yo-yo in my professional life for a while there (to all good results, before anyone starts asking!) I'm coming to an end of a series of reviews which is ALWAYS satisfactory and cause for celebration. After all, I don't often get to say this.
That's because while I tend to START a series, I kind of forget to keep putting reviews up.
I'm that bad, I know.
And for some reason I sound like Demelza from Poldark right now ... might have to lay off binge watching that one!
Anyway, it's been almost a full year since I posted the very first review of the very first book in the series, and now it's time to come full circle after the second one came along in mid-summer. And I'm insanely proud of myself for achieving as much, really! I think I should group my blog posts somewhere in one place at some point so that people can look them up quickly.
But before I go off-tangent, let's dig right into the review for Dreams of Gods and Monsters!
As is usual for me with these serial blog posts, there will be links down below to the posts that have come before, so if you want to read what happened prior to book three but don't have the time to actually read the first two books, you're more than welcome to read through the quick recaps.
Very briefly, however:
In Daughter of Smoke and Bone we meet the protagonists of this story, Karou and Akiva, who are a certain kind of Romeo and Juliet given that he is an angel and she is basically a devil, a chimaera reincarnated as a human girl with blue hair (she and Percy Jackson would get along SWELL I think) who once upon a time dreamed of a better world without a war. But, thinking Madrigal was dead, and only too late realizing Karou was in fact her, Akiva did the unthinkable and killed Karou's only known family, which of course sent the girl a-tripping away from him.
In Days of Blood and Starlight, as the title suggests, we're not even close to having no war as both sides are gearing up for more bloodshed. Karou is now with the rebels as a resurrectionist, while Akiva is still hunting his enemies ... although he and his half-siblings are now actually sparing those who are not warriors and planning a coup where they'll kill the Emperor (their papa) and hope his son wants to actually call an end to the war. Well, it WAS a good plan, until Crazy Uncle kills the son and takes the throne himself, then takes the angelic army to the mortal world.
Which drops us smack dab into Dreams of Gods and Monsters.
And let me tell you, A LOT happens in this book.
Like, you really need to pay attention otherwise you can blink, fall asleep for a bit, and be totally confused when you get back to reading.
While Jael and his Dominion (this be the Crazy Uncle by the way) are being fawned over (more or less) by us miserable humans (well, SOME; some are actually smart enough to see he may just be another even crazier dictator and those are cautious and smart), Karou & Co are trying to figure out how to evict them from Earth. Preferably WITHOUT starting World War: Extinction.
This is kind of difficult because the Misbegotten (the Angels) kind of want to kill the chimaera, and the monsters have hamsas on their hands which actually hurt Angels.
This almost ends up killing Liraz, but Ziri (posing as Thiago the rebel leader) saves her and manages to heal her deep in the waters of the caves they're staying in. Also, he lets her in on the secret that he is not, in fact, the White Wolf, and sadly he won't be made King in the North ...
Wait, wrong show.
So eventually, a plan is formed for a small group to go and talk to Jael, to threaten him that while he's off playing Emperor on Earth, back in Erezt his main camp is under attack. This is a double-edged sword since tons of things can go wrong, not the least of which being everyone could die.
Of course what they don't actually plan on is Karou's quasi grandmother Esther betraying them, but then again Mik and Zuzana (Karou's human friends) trick her and steal all her wishes from her, the most powerful of which they spend on Eliza, a girl who has been dubbed 'the Prophet' because she has visions of something really, really bad happening. Worse than Jael, even.
And she'd been going a bit ga-ga with all of this, also having some personal issues because let's face it human beings are hypocrites and we love stabbing each other in the back, BUT with the wish spent on her, she becomes her best possbile self - which is the descendant of Elazael, one of the Fallen Angels who actually started all this world-travelling stuff way back in the day.
The trio goes to travel to Eretz, while back in that homeland, EVERYTHING is going to pot.
Literally.
The rebel forces are so much weaker than the Dominion that their survival is kind of almost mood point, but luckily for them they get help from the Second Legion which does NOT like Jael.
And some unexpected help from a mysterious woman named Scarab and her Stelians, who can make themselves invisible and who've been tracking Akiva for a bit now. But they also kind of wanted to have fun killing Angels, so they did that while waiting for him to reemerge.
Oh, Jael gets his by Liraz. End of THAT story.
Unfortunately, however, Ziri had fallen during the battle, but Liraz hands Karou her cantee, saying she had sung a song ... and unbelievably (to my great delight) Ziri's soul is IN THE CANTEEN! (And he gets resurrected and he and Liraz might even have a shot at a relationship. YAY.)
With Jael and Thiago out of the picture, the war can now finally be over and they can begin releasing souls from Loramendi and the crypt of the underground capital which has acted as a giant thurible.
But before that, the trio with Eliza arrives, just as the Stelians reveal themselves because they kind of don't know if they want to kill Akiva now. Thing is, he's half-Stelian, on his mother's side, and an untrained magi, so maybe he could be trained. Also, Scarab develops a thing for Eliza, and Eliza being the Prophet and her words coinciding with what the Stelians have been seeing (aka there are some monsters coming to devour everything in sight which even the Fallen ran like the wind from), they kind of figure they may need all the help they can get.
So Akiva is off to magic land while Karou is left to resurrect the souls in Loramendi, although both of them are being taught better ways to work magic, that don't include pain.
Which is fine in my book!
Finally, as winter arrives, however, Karou is set to spend it with the Stelians, so the whole gang heads off to deliver her to Akiva who, in the meantime, has procured himelf a solitary, desolate island, and built a little hut there for them (which he got pressies for from his Stelian friends so he can decorate the home, natch).
And even though they are preparing for another war, essentially, Karou and Akiva can finally leave the past behind them, as they break a wishbone in two.
FIN.
Gosh, I loved this trilogy. I had some reading slumps while going through it but it had nothing to do with the books themselves - I'm looking into buying physical copies of them now, they're so good. Akiva and Karou are an amazing couple, and I love how there was none of that 'going off with someone else' in between. Also, I liked how the author has allowed herself some wiggle room in case she wants to come back to the story, what with the monsters approaching and whatnot. And of course Zuzana and Mik were absolute dears!
My favourites had to be Liraz and Ziri though, and I WISH there could be a spinoff just for the two of them!
If you have yet to read any of Laini Taylor's books, please do so! I highly recommend them.
xx
*image not mine
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