Kristen's #5: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

I had several people recommend this book to me within the space of a few weeks. And with very good reason. Daughter of Smoke and Bone was the only YA book to make Amazon's Top 10 of 2011, and it was the #1 YA book of 2011.

I'll preface this by saying I don't read or enjoy most YA lit. I read YA when I was myself a young adult and I liked it well enough then. Daughter of Smoke and Bone is far superior to pretty much any piece of YA lit I've ever read. Good writing is just plain good writing, regardless of the relative age of the intended audience.

Karou, the main protagonist, is a young woman with aquamarine hair that grows that way naturally who attends art school in Prague. The very substance of her being is a mystery. Karou puzzles her friends by going off on unexplained "errands" with practically no notice at all, disappearing sometimes for several days at a time. She has hamsas tattooed into her palms that have been there as long as she can remember.

The writing is luminous. The author, Laini Taylor (who as you can see sports some psychedelic locks herself) clearly has a sense for crafting turns of phrase. Her metaphors are complex and intricate. It's the first young adult novel I've had to actually look up the meaning of words, but yet the big words don't come off as trying too hard as they do in the Vampmeyer books.

The main conflict could come off as cliché (angles vs. demons), but it doesn't. And Karou is everything that Bella of Vampmeyer fame is not. Karou is self-assured, strong, trained in martial arts, witty, talented, independent, and beautiful. Well, I suppose Bella is supposed to be fabulously beautiful given that her name is Beautiful Swan and all but whatevs. (Sorry, I really didn't intend to turn this into a Twilight lampoon. But really. Karou is the anti-Bella. And it's awesome).

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is part fantasy and part mythology. Reality shifts as portals to other realities open. Oh, it's just good.

Be warned that it's the first book of a trilogy, and the followup books are still in the works (tentative release of book two in fall of 2012). I was glad that I knew that before I read the book so I wasn't shaking my fists at the sky with how the book ends. It's fabulous, but it's definitely a cliffhanger ending that leaves a great deal unresolved. I await the next installment with eagerness.

I don't really have much to say except that you absolutely should read it. I unreservedly recommend this even if you don't typically like YA lit or books with fantasy/sci-fi elements. The writing is that good.

I give this five stars without even batting an eye.

Kristen's 4th Book: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

It's a rare pleasure to read a book as imaginative and well-written as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

I knew nearly nothing about the book going in, as I received it as a Christmas present. My husband chose it from a list of reads recommended by one of his favorite sports bloggers, Keith Law. Incidentally, Mr. Law is a thoughtful and interesting writer who reads a ton. His list of the top 100 novels he has read is worthy of a perusal. There's quite a range. Additionally, his review of this particular novel is great.

Anyway. The book is a hefty tome, or rather would have been had I received a physical copy. In paperback, it's more than 1,000 pages. It took me the better part of three weeks to finish. Published in 2004, it was written by British author Susanna Clarke and is her debut novel.

I hesitate to give too much background, as part of the pleasure of the read is in the discovery of the world Clarke has created. As many of my favorite books are *cough Jasper Fforde cough*, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is set in England in a parallel reality. In Clarke's English, magic exists and English magicians practice magic. No dragons and alchemy, but a rich history of faeries and faery kings and practice of magic that shapes the history of England.

The events of the novel take place in the early part of the 19th century, and the tone/style of the novel is decidedly Victorian, with some gothic/Austenian overtones. In some respects, it reads just like a Dickensian chronicle of the history of English magic. Indeed, this book is written at least partially in the manner of a history book, complete with footnotes. While footnotes as a general prospect can be tiresome, I urge you to take the time to read them in this book. They are some of the cleverest, most inventive, and sometimes hilarious parts of the book. It was easy on my Kindle edition of the book because I could just pop to and fro.

As I said before, it's a long book. Parts of it felt a bit ponderous to me, though unlike a Dickens novel (as an aside, happy birthday, Mr. Dickens!) there's a relatively tight cast of characters for its 1,000 pages. It took me awhile to get through the first third of the book, which is still fun and creative but not nearly as fast-paced as the later parts of the novel. Some of that is perhaps a reflection of its focus on the distinguished Mr. Norrell. (Dear self, don't give too much away). And as it turns out, it takes a fair amount of exposition to establish a parallel universe wherein magic has been celebrated and practiced since the beginning of time (and before then, if one happens to be a faerie).

A dark humor interweaves the pages that very much appealed to me. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is never outright frightening, but I did experience a bit of the unease that the characters experienced when encountering faeries, who as it turns out are no Disney Tinkerbells. Nor are they Cornish pixies, but that's another review.

In my opinion, it's a book that's worth the investment, particularly for those with any interest in Victorian Britain (though there's also some time spent in war-torn Spain!) and Victorian literature. This certainly includes most of the bloggers here. The writing is fabulous, and it builds up to a singularly satisfying finish.

I vacillated on whether to give Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell four or five stars until I had read the last 50 or so pages. I liked how all the little end bits were resolved so well that the ending bumped it into the five star threshold.

And now that the time investment is over, I'm left feeling a little forlorn and just a tad lonely. Books like this one usually leave me feeling that way.