Title: Days of Blood & Starlight
Author: Laini Taylor
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
(Hachette Book Group)
Date published: November 6, 2012
10th Anniversary Edition, published December 1, 2020

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Note: This book is part of a series, and there are likely some spoilers in the synopsis below.

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?

⤖ My Review ⬻

Days of Blood & Starlight is the second book in Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone series! If you have not read my review for the first book in the series yet, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, you’re welcome to do so here. Now, assuming that all of your reading this are up to date on what my opinions were regarding the first book in the Daughter of Smoke & Bone series, I here shall continue the raving review that I started for Days of Blood & Starlight in my post about book one.

Despite feeling as if I’d been a little detached (for lack of a better word) while reading Daughter of Smoke & Bone, the fact that I understood the world, mostly, already knew the characters, and the plot really started picking up in the previous book, I felt more than ready to jump into Days of Blood & Starlight!

As I mentioned in my review for the first book, there were quite a few months in between my reading book one and reading book two, and I was definitely in the right mood to read this series when I picked up book two (which I’m sorry to say again was not 100% the case with book one). This mood definitely helped me get into the swing of things a lot faster, and I absolutely flew through Days of Blood & Starlight despite my busy work schedule at the time.

Usually, the middle book in a trilogy is fairly difficult for me to get through, but I enjoyed this middle book immensely! The characters became more fleshed out, I was savouring every word that Taylor had put to paper (she’s so talented), and I also enjoyed following along with the main plot’s developments (as well as all of the sub-plots)!

Normally, unless it’s a romance subplot, I tend to feel frustrated with certain subplots, because they make me feel as if they’re keeping me away from the main plot. But regarding the subplots in Days of Blood & Starlight, I couldn’t get enough! I highly recommend this book and the Daughter of Smoke & Bone series as a whole!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Laini Taylor is the New York Times bestselling author of the Printz Honor Book Strange the Dreamer and its sequel, Muse of Nightmares. Taylor is also the author of the global sensation the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy and the companion novella Night of Cake & Puppets. Taylor’s other works include the Dreamdark books: Blackbringer and Silksinger, and the National Book Award finalist Lips Touch: Three Times. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, illustrator Jim Di Bartolo, and their daughter, Clementine. Her website is lainitaylor.com.

⤖ Places to Purchase the Book ⬻

⤖ Let’s Chat ⬻

THANK YOU FOR READING MY REVIEW! HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? AND IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET, DO YOU WANT TO, OR NOT? HOW COME? LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS!