"Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor

"Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.
When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?"-goodreads

This book was so many things. It was suspense, confusion, tension, beauty, strength, and weakness. There was romance and then there was hatred. There were memories and there was flipping in between their present and their past. There was a girl, Karou, our heroine of the story, and she had naturally blue hair. And that's cool too. The writing was beautiful and created superbly vivid imagery. At times, reading The Daughter of Smoke and Bone I was confused, because I couldn't decide what I thought of characters-- even Karou. By what I think, I meant whether I trusted them, and Karou is the main character! It was weird. It was deception! It was exciting. Akiva is awesome. All the characters were well developed even with their veils of mystery. The way time passed or flitted back and forth between the future and the present for the narrative, especially near the end, was difficult to get used to at first but then I ended up liking that too.

It was a peculiar book. With its many dimensions and complicated inner-workings it wasn't like anything I've read before. I have nothing to compare it to! It surprised me and it lived up to the hype. The writing kept me totally wrapped up in the story and engrossed in its complex world with its depth and clever wording-- Laini Taylor totally hit that out of the park! All that having been said; I look forward to the sequel!
Thank you to Little Brown for the opportunity to review this book!