513 pages.
Appetizer: After the events of Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou has disappeared, leaving her best friend Zuzana to obsess, worry, and deal with the aftermath Karou having been recorded flying over a bridge in Prague.
Tensions are mounting between the angels and chimaera and Karou and her former love (of a couple of lives), Akiva, are separated and fighting on opposite sides once more.
Strange and mysterious thefts has occurred at many museums around the world. Someone is stealing from the large animal displays. Someone is taking the beasts' teeth.
Although still amazingly well-written, I initially had trouble keeping my focus on this book the way I managed to dive into Daughter of Smoke & Bone. My suspicion is that Days of Blood & Starlight jumped upon too many different characters' perspectives for my tastes. Plus, with Karou and Akiva's love being on ice, and Karou separated from her best friend/comic relief, Zuzana, my drive to know what was happening next was lessened.
But, by mid-book, friends and love interests were interacting and the drama heightened and Days of Blood & Starlight won me over and now I'm left waiting for the final book in the trilogy.
Taylor once again manages to write beautiful prose, establish a love triangle, and deliver some surprising plot twists. It is worth noting though, that these beautiful prose do include some difficult and dark situations (including one extensive and disturbing sexual assault scene). Still, the second book in this trilogy does live up to the first. Keep reading this series!
Dinner Conversation:
"Prague, early May. The sky weighed gray over fairy-tale rooftops, and all the world was watching. Satellites had even been tasked to surveil the Charles Bridge, in case the...visitors...returned. Strange things had happened in this city before, but not this strange. At least, not since video existed to prove it. Or to milk it.
"Please tell me you have to pee."
"What? No. No, I do not. Don't even ask."
"Oh, come on. I'd do it myself if I could, but I can't. I'm a girl."
"I know. Life is so unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you." (p. 1)
"Karou didn't understand. The world she was returning to was not the one from her memories. She would find no help or solace there--only ash and angels." (p. 7)
"Affixed to it [a table] with a twist of silver wire was a small square of paper on which was written a word. It was a chimaera word, and under the circumstances the cruelest taunt Akiva could fathom, because it meant hope, and it was the end of his, since it was also a name.
It was Karou." (p. 26)
"A phantom, the news anchor said.
At first, the evidence of trespass had been too scant to be taken seriously, and of course there was the matter of it being impossible. No one could penetrate the high-tech security of the world's elite museums and leave no trace. There was only a prickle of unease along the curators' spines, the chilling and unassailable sense that someone had been there." (p. 39)
Tasty Rating: !!!!!
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