A blue-haired artist in Prague with mysterious stories about chimeras, a knack for having trouble finding her, and frenemies in unusual places makes for a surprisingly engaging book.

Book Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Book Author: Laini Taylor
Book Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Retail Price: $18.99
Buy it at: Various Outlets

Daughter of Smoke and Bone revolves around mysterious Karou, the artist and tooth collector, later adding a seraphim warrior Akiva to the mix, with a wide array of secondary characters filling things out.

The characters that Karou interacts with have all been given a unique appearance with corresponding mannerisms and personality. Which is good, because I'm a sucker for a stories about chimeras, seraphim, or flying. And this book happens to have a trifecta.

Unfortunately for Karou, the seraphim and the chimeras don't get along. Not in the family feud, have a food fight at Thanksgiving type of not getting along. More like the kill each other horribly for generations and setting doors on fire type of not getting along. But what's a generations-long racial war without a couple players who seem to have created a third, more peacefully violent position of "Can't we all just get along? No? Well then I'll fight you until we get along."

Not necessarily the best political position, but it seems to be the one that Karou's love interest is taking. (The fluffy sword wielding one, not the naked itchy one.)

Despite all the political shenanigans, Karou's best friend was my favourite character, surprisingly. Capable of creating elaborate contraptions and accepting the uniqueness of Karou’s situation – at least up to the reincarnation bit she’s not aware of yet. Not sure how that’ll go down.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, as it was a relatively fresh perspective on the “angel” vs. “demon” stories out there. It’s easy enough to draw parallels to Romeo & Juliet, but that feels a bit too cliché for a story that entertained me for two days straight. It’s now the second series where I’ve seen writers use seraphim over angels. Could this be a new trend? *gasp and insert dramatic music here*

I'm not sure if I'd necessarily change anything in the story, but I’m still curious about how Druizil/little batguy made it to Karou considering all the ensuing chaos and fire and dramatically global portal problems. Granted, he was aflame and died for his efforts, which proved pivotal in Karou’s friend learning just who Karou is. I just feel bad for the little guy, not even getting a heroic snip of how he made it there in time and all that. Just a God in the Machine fiery bat to help nudge the plot along.

Overall, I’d recommend Daughter of Smoke and Bone to a select few of my friends I know would appreciate it, and to any readers who enjoy a good paranormal YA book. There are references to some purple (boys = blue, girls = pink. You do the chromatic math) going on but nothing explicit. And there’s the whole chimeras not always needing clothing for certain body parts that humans normally cover *cough snakeboobs cough* so the more sheltered or sensitive minds should perhaps wait another few years before testing your virgin eyes out on this one. But, other than snakeboobs and bodyswapping love, this is a solid start of what I hope will be an interesting series. I look forward to the sequel.