The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Horrifyingly beautiful.

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. A being who can control beauty.

In the world of Orleans, people are born entirely devoid of all color. With red eyes and grey skin, beauty is something that does not come naturally. Belles are able, through the use of magic called Arcana, to shape and shift paying customers into glowing examples of beauty.

In the beginning, feeling a bit like The Hunger Games, we find Camellia competing with her sister Belles to be named the ‘favorite’ of the kingdom. This is a prize designation they have been raised to covet.

With the tagline of the kingdom being, “May you always find beauty”, I have to assume I am not the only reader to gauge heavy HG vibes from this book. In some ways however, this book felt more dangerous than The Hunger Games.

I would equate the overall vibe I picked up to watching, Alice in Wonderland as a child. The animation is beautiful. The colors are lush, the background has beautiful flowers and mushrooms, but you feel afraid. There is an ominous presence overarching all of the beauty that makes you feel cold in your bones. That is how this book felt for me.

To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about this in the beginning. I didn’t become truly invested until a little over the halfway mark. Clayton’s writing is strong, it wasn’t that. I loved her descriptions of the world and the way she showed the magic system.

However, as can sometimes happen with 1st books to a series, there is such a vast world to be built that the plot can suffer because of it. I felt like there was so much to bring to the reader before they could envision this world the way the author envisioned it that the story dragged. With that being said, once the plot really started rolling I could NOT wait to see what was going to happen.

This story did introduce one of the most evil villains EVER.
Princess Sophia.

I loathe you.

Guys, this character ranks HIGH on my list of most HATED characters ever. She may actually sit in the number two spot right now; directly under Professor Umbridge.

Her behavior is absolutely foul and infuriating. Her treatment of others, gah, I just can’t even. She’s a sadist. I mean, that may be a stretch, this is a YA novel but she definitely has some issues. Let’s leave it at that.

The final scene of this book left me with chills and I cannot wait to pick up, The Everlasting Rose. It was such a cliffhanger and I just know the next book is going to be full of action and further suspense. I am now a big fan of Camellia, even though we had a rocky start, and I can’t wait to see how her character grows in the next book.

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Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

12/12/18: Reflections of 2018 continue with this book, Heir of Fire my favorite book read in April. Since reading this, I have also completed, Queen of Shadows. At the time when I finished this one, it was my FAVORITE of the series. Now it is QoS. For me, they keep getting better and better.

I know haters out there.

That’s fine. No shame here. I am TRASH for this series. Fight me.

Manon gives me life and getting to know her during the course of this book was so entertaining for me. I am equally obsessed with Abraxos and know that my heart is ultimately going to end up being broken in that regard ((NO SPOILERS PLEASE)).

Also, it is now apparent to me that I never wrote a full review for this so, boo on me. Fail.

Original: Oh. My. Wyrd. What an ending! This series! (Fans self) Full review to come…

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Publication Date: November 6, 2012

4-strong stars for Days of Blood and Starlight.

This is the second book in Laini Taylor’s hugely popular Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy, the first of which I have reviewed previously on this blog. The good news is, I did enjoy this book a lot more than I enjoyed the first one.

In this book, we find Karou thrust into the role left vacant by Brimstone, her father figure and one of the higher-ups in the Chimera society, and it is one she definitely grows into as the story unfolds. She is suffering with grief and loss and because of this her character is raw and has an overwhelming need for vengeance. I like this Karou. I feel like her finally knowing who she is and what she is allows her to gain more strength than she had in the first book.

We still follow along with Akiva’s story as well as he re-immerses himself into the Seraphim regular life – training, fighting, politics – we see it all here and meet a lot more very interesting characters along the way. The world building in this book is really strong. The world we saw in the first book is built upon and built upon in this one until you feel like you are looking at this vast empire of angels v demons. It is truly astounding!

I also like how the romance of the first book really takes a back seat in this one. There is really no ‘romance’ storyline here in an obvious sense, although some may be lingering just under the surface. This book is packed full of action and you definitely can feel that the whole storyline is rushing towards a final, conclusive battle. We see old side characters reemerge here; including my favorites, Zuzana & Mik. (of note: I am so excited to read, Night of Cake & Puppets, now that I know what it is actually about! This is a companion novel to this series that follows Zuzana & Mik as their relationship first begins.)

I listened to this one, as I did the first, on audiobook and I think the narrator just does a spectacular job bringing this incredible world to life. I have already started the third book and it is even more action-packed, picking up right where the second book leaves off. I am sure I will be shook by whatever the conclusion to this is going to be! 

Publication Date: September 17, 2011

Rating: 4-stars (I really liked it) 

Obviously, I am extremely late to the party on this one – I have been hearing for years now how great this book is, how great the series is, how I MUST read it. I finally decided to give it a go (on audio) and I wasn’t disappointed…but, I wasn’t blown away either. It was good but I think, for me, it fell victim to the hype – I was sort of expecting the best book ever written and although the writing style is gorgeous, the plot was lacking for me, particularly through the beginning. I did feel the second half of the book was much stronger in the ‘plot’ department and that ending crushed me.

As with other first books of a series, so much character development and world creation can occur due to it being an introduction that it can end up retracting a bit from the actual story. I will say that Laini Taylor’s writing itself is very strong. The flow and her choice and use of words is flawless. I absolutely loved that part of it and am excited to read her other series, Strange the Dreamer, as well. I also really enjoyed a lot of the characters, particularly Zuzana and Madrigal. I am excited to move forward with this series and to see what the ultimate outcome will be for Karou. I have already begun the second book, as of this morning, and already feel much more invested in it than I did with the first book!

*As a side note, for the audiobook, the narrator is excellent and I would definitely recommend it in this format!