Book Review: Dreams Of Gods & Monsters; Laini Taylor.

Hooray! I finally got to this book! But uh oh? I'm afraid I didn't enjoy it as much as a lot of people did, in fact I would go as far as to say I was a little disappointed. Please don't hurt me, let me explain why instead! Just as a little side note, this book marks my first read for the Prequel & Sequel Challenge! Exciting stuff!

SOURCE: Bought
TYPE: E-Read

TITLE: Dreams Of Gods & Monsters
AUTHOR: Laini Taylor
SERIES: Daughter Of Smoke & Bone (#3)
PUBLISHER: Hodder & Stoughton
PAGES: 616
GENRE: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

RATING: 2/5 Stars

Blurb:
By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz.

Common enemy, common cause.

When Jael's brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people.

And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love.

But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz...something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world.

What power can bruise the sky?

From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy. 


At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?

What I Liked:

• So I gave it 3.5 stars. I must have liked something, right? In fact I did. From about a third of the way through the book, I really enjoyed the story. Taylor had the pacing spot on, and I was hooked throughout that portion of the story. The interruptions from the Eliza story-line vexed me a little but I overlooked them because I was enjoying what was going on elsewhere!
• Akiva and Karou! Finally their relationship got the time that it needed and I was so glad that Taylor didn't choose to drag their consistent misunderstandings and argument into this book as well. I think if she'd continued that ridiculous, irritating charade up I would have had a meltdown! And the two of them together were such a great couple, I was so happy every time they were together. Of course Mik and Zuzana deserve a mention for being awesome couple of the century, and I loved the moments that Liraz shared with Ziri too.

What I Disliked:

• So I'll start with the beginning of the book. This one is probably a little bit my fault because I read 'Days Of Blood & Starlight' so long ago, but I was so confused. I couldn't remember who people/creatures were, who was pretending to be who, who knew about this. I felt a little thrown into the book and just had to go with it, hoping that at some point I would understand. As well as that, there was a new character and I couldn't remember if I was supposed to know who she was or not already. It left me feeling a bit lost.
• So if I didn't like the beginning then I really didn't like the end. There was a point in the story which I felt made a good ending. Then the story just didn't stop. It kept going and from that point onwards in my opinion it went downhill. It felt like Taylor suddenly thought 'Oh that new character I introduced actually has no purpose, I'll just make something up, tag it on the end and hope for the best'. In fact it didn't conclude anything, it made the entire book feel like it was the precursor for yet another story-line rather than a series finale.
• There were many times that I felt like Taylor just wrote in a stream of whatever came to mind, and it didn't feel entirely edited. During these moments I actually got to a point where I read them as words and couldn't put them together as sentences. It made for frustrating reading and I was so disappointed that I didn't like Taylor's writing style as I had done in previous books. The constant character switching in the middle of chapters confused me so much as well!

Overall Conclusion:

I'm really annoyed that I didn't like this book, as I had done her previous books. During the middle section there were some amazing sections that I really did like reading so I gave it 3.5 stars for that reason. But for me the beginning and ending were totally messed up and I felt lost and confused so many times that it became frustrating. Sorry Taylor lovers!