"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
The Daughter of Smoke & Bone series: Lifting Paranormal Romance to a New Height
by Erin Cowles
I
thought the Romeo and Juliet narrative had been done and redone so
many times that I wouldn't be interested in yet another variation on
the theme. I thought I couldn’t stay interested in books about
wars between angels and demons. I thought including post-colonial
themes in fantasy worlds always came across as preachy.
I
thought wrong. Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and
its sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight were engaging and
thought-provoking reads that felt completely fresh.
While
Karou’s life as a teenage art student in Prague seems fairly
normal, her home life is another story. Karou has been raised by four
demons. Although they treat her with love and respect, which she
reciprocates, they have withheld any information about how this
living arrangement came to be, or any aspect of their world that
exists outside of their wish-granting shop. She often feels
unconnected and somehow incomplete.
When
an angel appears in town and the portal that connects her to her
demon family is severed, Karou begins a journey to understand her
true identity and her role within a paranormal war that has been
raging for decades. This new world is ethically complicated and full
of difficult choices, and in a world where people live for hatred,
Karou has to fight to make a space where she can act with empathy,
hope, and love.
Taylor’s
strong writing chops are what make these books work. Her prose is
lyrical, her pacing is perfect, and she can create a strong sense of
place without losing the flow of the story. She manages to (mostly)
avoid the moralistic feel that comes when authors talk about
intolerance by giving both the angels and demons in these stories
beauty and ugliness. The leadership of both groups has been corrupted
by hatred and power, and individuals of both societies are capable of
goodness and bravery.
There
are some content issues for a Mormon audience. The overarching theme
of Days of Blood and Starlight is that living for revenge and
power destroys a society’s humanity. There is definitely
violence and brutality in these books, including sexual abuse.
However, the point of including these themes is to explore what
causes these societal ills and what it takes to stop them.
Further,
the teens in these books aren’t exactly following the
guidelines found in For the Strength of Youth. While the
violence in these books is supposed to be horrifying and wrong,
premarital sex is treated as perfectly normal. There are also
passages that occur while Karou is drawing nude humans as an art
student, an activity which some teens might not be able to place in
its proper framework.
The
final book in this trilogy, currently unnamed, will be published in
April 2014, so there’s a long wait to see how this trilogy
resolves. I worry that by adding so many characters and settings in
the second book, Taylor has spun this series out to a point she can’t
control it, but she’s already proven me wrong several times
with this series, and she’s likely to do it again.
Read
this book if…
You
love to savor beautiful passages of writing. You’ll find
yourself repeatedly stopping to enjoy Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
You
love fantasy written by female authors. Fantasy is a great place to
explore the deep questions of life, and I love it when the questions
that affect women are woven into these worlds.
You
love a well-crafted story of star-crossed love. The forces keeping
the romantic leads apart are powerful and painful, but I still find
myself rooting for them to somehow make it work.
Erin
Cowles is a mother of two, living in the Washington D.C. suburbs.
Before motherhood, she used her masters in library and information
science in a law firm library. Now she uses it to find good books for
her family at her local public library. She teaches part time for a
SAT prep company, where she enjoys the challenge of making rather
dull subject matter interesting and making college a reality for her
students. During women's history month, she profiles Mormon women
that inspire her at ldswomenshistory.blogspot.com.
Erin
currently serves as a counselor in her ward's primary
presidency.