Syahira's Literary Obsession

Although I have some reservation with this book (how many Angel YA books that I need to read anyway), but I'm glad that I took a chance with Daughter of Smoke and Bone since my faith in Angel-related YAs is slowly depleting. Written in several parts, DoSaB is about an artistic girl in Prague who runs as an errand girl to a shop handled by chimera who have a door that goes virtually everywhere around the earth. One of the thing is, her errand involved collecting teeth. That is so bizarre. Karou is a character as uniquely her own name (I kept spelling it out as Kaoru.. troublesome). As an errand girl who was raised by these chimeras, she knew that there were lines that she couldn't cross and secrets that her chimeric (hey.. chemistry!) family kept from her. However, something went wrong with the chimerean dimension, Elsewhere, and it only takes one accident during her errand and a moment of error that the demonic family that had raised Karou abandons her suddenly. Leaving her stranded and almost clueless if not for the burned hand print on the portal that leads to her home.On the other hand, prior to that while on a mission, Akiva found a curious blue haired human girl coming out from the demonic portal and seemed to grew curious of her before realizing that she is not what she seems when he found out her dealings and accidentally exposing him as a seraphim. Seeing Karou as one of the demon's minions, he attacked her and only a breath away from killing her when he stopped himself and let her get away. Questioning his faith in his mission, he abandoned his post and went to search for the curious girl with blue hair. In the midst of a raging war that was occuring between the Seraphims and the Chimeras, DoSaB went along the line of a tragic tale behind Akiva's past and Karou finding out who she really is. What began as a series, I notice that I have qualm over the whole starcrossed lovers than the second part of the book seem to have. I began to lose interest until the storyline went back into the modern world again. The relationship between Akiva and Karou is one of those intriguing aspect of the book. Unlike the usual insta-romance that other YA romance muck seemed to love repeating every once in a while, DoSaB offers a fresh expect of the whole forbidden romance ideals. It is refreshingly complex. Unlike other Angel YA that seem to drag along the line of some cosmic powers, the love element that the novel had took a more more mature and emotionally intense than the whole stalking and happy-ending things that most would expect. Although somewhere in the later part (the past), I think it just goes out of momentum when it went back again to the dynamic. As soon as we put that behind, I was raring to go with the next installment.Just a word of caution, if you enjoy most of the Angel YAs like Hush Hush, Halo, Unearthly, Fallen and Mortal Instruments.. I wouldn't guarantee you will like this book because it doesn't ooze with conventional YA-ism which most would rebel. Think through it.