Oh Bloody Hell...Or "Days of Blood and Starlight"

Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2) Title:  Days of Blood and Starlight
Author:  Laini Taylor
Format:  E-galley
Length:  517 pages
Publisher:  Little Brown and Co.
Rating:  3 stars

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.


Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

-Goodreads


My Thoughts
This, the second book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series was a very hard read to get through.
Most of the book was spent with Zuzanna searching for Karou; Karou wishing for the days when she was her former self from a previous life, and well...monster making.  Lots of monster making.
  
For those of you that fell in love, (myself included) with the world that we were introduced to in Daughter of Smoke and Bone; will find that world quite masterfully obliterated this time around.
What we find in it's place is war, blood, pain, and loads of Romeo and Juliet angst action on the parts of Karou and Akiva.

While the back story on Akiva and the Misbegotten is very interesting at first, after the 300th time that we have to hear about it, it gets a little old.  When we lost the characters that died in the first book, a lot of the flavor died as well.  Come back??????!!!!!!

Even the war becomes overkill that leaves you wondering who or what will be left to rule by the time either side gets finished KILL, KILL, KILLING everyone in sight?
I mean really.
Do you have to kill EVERYBODY?????

There are a great many more issues that should be brought to light, but in the interest of not spoiling the read, will not.
This book is well written, however it seems to suffer from second book-itis.  That is when the author throws everything but the kitchen sink into the second book while trying to focus on keeping the characters that readers fell in love with in the first book interesting.

Hint:  The trick is to continue the journey that you started in the first book.  Not to go so far off the path that your audience needs a GPS and a week to find you.




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