Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I've been lusting after this book, stalking it, staring at it out of my peripheral vision for a long time. And I finally read it. And what can I say? I actually liked it. 
 This book is about a girl named Karou who is a talented art student (yay!) living in Prague (what? awesome!) with her best friend. She's the daughter of a monstrous beast name Brimstone, and has a bunch of friends who are equally beastly. She has a rather strange job: she collects teeth for some strange purpose and reports to Brimstone with her bounty. One day, Karou finds sinister handprints have sprang up on portals to Brimstone's workshop, and the seraphim descend. These aren't biblical seraphim, however... 
 Characters First! 
 So. Karou. She's pretty cool! That's rare for me to like a female protagonist. She was cool, believable, independent, curious, a little feisty, careful, and adventurous. Not to mention artistic, of course. She made all in all smart choices for her age. 
 Then there's her friend Zuzana. She's your typical perky caffeinated bestie. I liked her. :) 
 Then there's Akiva. Akiva Akiva Akiva. A winged man of impossible beauty (heard that before) and a countenance that could freeze hell (and that too.) What sets him apart is that he's believable, actually, as one of these types of people. However, (view spoiler)[ like all love interests of his ilk, he devolves into a blubbering quivering mass of emotions and sobs eventually. A shame. I simply covered those parts with my fingers and screamed at the book until they went away. Problem solved! (hide spoiler)] What a handsome specimen. I was pleased by his leonine eyes. The scarier the better! 
 Brimstone. Wow. I really grew to love his character so much. He began as a monstrous, scary creature of mystery, but eventually I found there was so much more to him. I cannot expound for fear of spoiling his character. 
 The Story 
 It was exciting! After coming off Delirium, this is prose done right. However Taylor really goes crazy with all the metaphors! Too many. So many that I had to gloss over whole sections just to get back on tract! But anyhow, the story was interesting. I was completely devoted to the romance between Karou and Akiva until the big reveal of the book. It totally punched me in the gut and told me to step aside. Lemme explain, but if you don't want things spoiled, sorry. (view spoiler)[Karou turns out to be Akiva's lost love, Madrigal, some kinda chimaera with horns. So she ain't human after all. Okay. I don't like those types of deals. I don't want to hear about this whole other life Karou had/has. I've grown invested in Karou's life, and she's my vehicle into this other realm. But now I find out she's not "one of us." It made me step back a little. I felt like I didn't belong anymore. Call me crazy but having a relatable character keeps me in the story. When they "change" into something, it makes me recoil. (hide spoiler)] 
 After the reveal, I was still interested, but not to the same degree. I admit, I skipped bits here and there during a few flashbacks I didn't feel like reading. The end totally made me pissed. But Karou was pissed too, so that was expected. It was the good kind of pissed. I simply didn't expect Akiva to go from what he started as to what he devolved into. 
 BOTTOM LINE? TL;DR 
 It was a good book with good characters and a believable romance. I was invested up to a point, where a big twist caused me to recoil and detach from the story a bit. Not fatal damage, but severe for my tastes. Cost a star. Great book though! I will read the next!