Book Review | Dreams of Gods and Monsters | Laini Taylor

Title: Dreams of Gods and Monsters
Author: Laini Taylor (web | twitter)
Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone #3
Genre: Fantasy YA, angels
Amazon | Goodreads | B&N
Publisher: Little, Brown
Release date: April 8, 2014
Source: Bought it

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?

I have been putting off writing my review of DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS, the last installment in Laini Taylor’s glorious Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. Not because I didn’t like it–OPPOSITE. In fact, it’s BECAUSE I loved it so that I kept putting off writing down my thoughts. The conclusion to the thousands of years of war between the angels and chimaera of Eretz, and so the conclusion of the tale of Akiva and Karou, star-crossed loves, was as emotional and bittersweet and hopeful as I wished it to be. It was intense and dark, but also full of little rays of light. I would love to say that DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS is perfect on its own, but I didn’t think it was, not quite. But when I consider it in conjunction with the first two books in this series? YES, MA’AM. AMAZING.

So I’m going to keep my little summary short this time to avoid spoilers, but here’s the gist: Karou and Akiva have corralled the remaining Misbegotten and Chimaera in the Kirin caves in Eretz. They are trying to prepare for their big offensive push against Jael and his Dominion forces that have used one of the remaining portals to invade the human world. There are other forces at work, however, that throw Karou and Akiva’s plans for a loop, the ramifications of which can mean the failure of lifetimes of dreams and hard work. EEP!

The things that I loved the most about DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS revolved, as most things do in this series, around the characters and the relationships. The foremost of these is obviously Karou and Akiva. They remain emo and tortured and torn between their feelings and their plans for finally putting an end to the war between their people and get moving on that happy, different life they dreamed about in the Temple of Ellai. I spent lots of time during DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS wanting to just shove their faces together, but the way Laini Taylor draws it out is ultimately very satisfying. I trust her storytelling abilities completely, and she does Karou and Akiva–the heart and soul of this series–justice.

But of course there are other characters that I came to love over the course of this series, and seeing them again and the roles that they play was emotional and sweet and intense. As always, Mik and Zuzana were fabulous and I adore them, and Ziri. ZIRI. I die from my love for him. But other characters, too, have such great arcs and change in ways that really warmed my heart. Laini Taylor knows how to write beautifully and how to imbue those words with MAJOR feelings. She did so many characters justice, whether they were old or new (there are new–intriguing and awesome–characters in DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS).

So much of this book was amazing and satisfying and just what I was hoping for that it largely allowed me to gloss over something that I didn’t love very much. It involves a completely new character whose chapters wound up throwing off the flow of the whole story for me. They were important for sure, and I didn’t hate them, but I thought that reading them was like slamming on the breaks. Most annoyingly though, is that a secondary character is introduced in these chapters and things just kind of…flap around with him. It’s a small but important role and it bugged me the whole time that we just stopped hearing about him. Alas, nothing is perfect.

By and large, though, DREAMS OF GODS AND MONSTERS was excellent. The action was good, if some parts read slower than others, the drama was off the charts, the romance was intense and broody, the writing was lush and lovely, and the climax was perfectly emotional. Everything was a touch bittersweet because of the things and people that were lost along the way, but in the end I couldn’t be more thrilled with this series and the way it concluded. Laini Taylor is magic.

Check out some other reviews of Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor!

Heather @ The Flyleaf Review: “I had a lot of feeling and emotions while reading–and let me tell you–they run the gamut. I had highs and I had lows.”