All Things Halloween Review - Dreams of Gods and Monsters

Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Daughter of Smoke and Bone, # 3)

By: Laini Taylor

Published: April 8, 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton

613 pages

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Paranormal

Sourece: Birthday Present

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Goodreads description--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 felt like I missed a good bit of Days of Blood and Starlight while I was listening to it on audio. And so in an attempt to prevent that from happening with Dreams of Gods and Monsters I did two things: 1) I took notes. 2) I progressed slowly and only listened when I felt like I could really pay attention. And I still came out of Dreams of Gods and Monsters feeling a little like I missed some important parts, but not nearly to the level of Days of Blood and Starlight. I say all this to say that this is a complicated series, and while I would definitely recommend this series to lovers of fantasy, I would not really recommend the audio version. Khristine Vham does a great job with the narration. I applaud her pronunciation, and I even like the voices that she does for the characters, specifically Zuzana. It's just that there is a lot to absorb, and I think it's probably better done through actually reading it.

As I said, there's a lot that happens in this book, and it's one of the more complicated stories with pieces coming in from all angles. Coming in at 613 pages, Dreams of Gods and Monsters has a lot to wrap up and bring together. I dealt with frustrations in the beginning with story lines that felt like they didn't have anything to do with what's happened so far. And that's true to some extent, but mostly they were there to pull everything together for the ending. But it took quite a while for the events to begin to make sense. And most of the time, I just wanted to get back to Karou and Akiva.

Karou is one of those characters that has it all. She experiences almost every emotion you can think of throughout this book and especially over the entire course of the series. Zuzana is still one of my favorite best friend characters, and probably one of my favorite characters period. She brings the humor and I heart her. Akiva...poor Akiva. He's been through so much and Dreams of Gods and Monsters doesn't really give him a break either. Ziri shines in the parts that are focused on him. I was fearful of his affection towards Karou, but I didn’t have to worry. Liraz softens as a character throughout Dreams of Gods and Monsters, and I’m so glad because she was a throwaway character for me before.

Dreams of Gods and Monsters does wrap up all the loose ends so no worries about a cliffhanger. I was especially stressed out about the ending there for a while, but everything worked out in a way that I was completely okay with. This series as a whole has been an extremely enjoyable fantasy and I look forward to going back through it whenever I have a chance—maybe then more of the details will sink in. I definitely recommend Dreams of Gods and Monsters and the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series as a whole. Dreams of Gods and Monsters gets 4 stars from me. Have you read Dreams of Gods and Monsters? What did you think? Let me know!

*Having not actually read this book, I didn't see the spelling for each character's name and may have misspelled some above. If you notice any misspellings, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

This review is part of my All Things Halloween event--a month of paranormal, supernatural, mystery/thriller, etc reviews and books.