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Review: Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Summary

Common enemy, common cause.

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?

My thoughts

With Dreams of Gods and Monsters Laini Taylor wrote an epic conclusion to her Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. I couldn’t be more happy about this last book even though I’m also very sad that it is over now (I’m still not giving up hope that we will get to go back to this world because it seemed like there is some much more to tell about it).

Epic worldbuilding

I already loved the world about angels and chimaera in the first and even more in the second book. There were so many ideas and such an awesome world to read about in these two books. I never expected to get even more new details in the third book. There was a whole new story about the past of this land to read about and I absorbed every word of it. All this was so interesting that even 600 pages weren’t enough and I wished we would get a prequel that describes all what happened thousands of years before in greater detail.
I was amazed how Laini Taylor suddenly wove all these things back from the first book together with the events from this last book. I loved that even secondary characters like Razgut, who seemed so unimportant at first, become a huge and important part of the story.
Now that I finally know all about this world, got the whole picture, I can’t stop being fascinated by it and how epic and magnificent it is.

More like the second book than the first

The second book in the series came as quite a surprise because it was different than the first one. It dealt with different things and was darker than the first one. That’s why I loved the second book even more than the first one and was glad that the third one continued like that. As magical as the first book was, diving into Erez was way more exciting. Suddenly there were these real problems to deal with, problems that concerned a whole nation and not just Karou and a few other characters. This was so much more epic.

Great character development

This book is all about changes, changing thousand of years old thoughts about their different races and the war. It was interesting to see how some characters slowly changed their mind about the enemies and started to think that it is possible to live in peace.
As nice as it was to see that a lot of characters developed in that way, character development also had its downside. There was one character in particular that made me all sad to read about. That character had a really hard time dealing with what’s happening and wasn’t as cheerful anymore. It was well done though. There is a war going on and people are dying, angels and chimaera alike, and that has to have a huge impact on these characters. That some of them are nearly breaking down from that made this realistic.
I just love this group of characters so much and was glad to get to read another 600 pages about them.

New character/POV

This new character gave an interesting new insight into this world and on these events. I liked that the last book was not only about wrapping things up but still has so much new to offer. Getting to know a whole new character and finding out about her part in the overall story breathes new life into this epic series. Not that I don’t love the old characters enough to be satisfied by just to read about them, but it’s nice to get to read about even more of Laini’s creations.

Sometimes a bit too convenient or easy

With a war like the one going on in this series, one has to expect a great deal of losses. I was surprised though how many characters made it until the end. I’m not really complaining that most of them got out of this so easily. It would have broken my heart to see more of them die, but it still was a bit unrealistic. The whole overall plan seemed so easy and unsuspected help at the right moment felt a bit too convenient.

Perfect ending

I don’t always need a happy ending but after spending so much time with these characters I deeply love, I just needed an ending that wouldn’t leave me in tears. And I’m SO glad that I can say that I’m very happy how things ended. One part of the ending was rather cheese but I liked it after all these troubling times and the other part is kind of open. Even though the worst is over, there is still more to come. I liked that it wasn’t a “and they lived happily ever after” ending because that wouldn’t fit these characters. The characters mostly got what I wanted for them and that made a very satisfying ending for me.

Overall

Just like with the first two books Laini Taylor wrote a Wonderful story. Her beautiful writing style still makes me swoon and tag all the pages. Saying goodbye to these characters wasn’t easy but they got an ending I can happily live with. Laini Taylor created an amazing world that has a fascinating story to tell and that I will revisit again and again.

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  • Hi, love your blog. I’m giving you a Liebster award. For details please visit my blog (or google it, like I had to) :)

  • Ah! I can; wait to read this book. I preordered it and got it when it came out, but things like school have been getting in the way, plus I want to reread the first two… I must make this a priority. I am anxious to see how it plays out based on your review- it sounds like I am in for something good :)

  • So begeistert wie du von der Reihe bist, muss ich mich da auch mal dransetzen. Der Fischer Verlag hatte mir irgendwann mal den zweiten Teil geschickt, aber bisher war ich mir nicht sicher, ob ich den ersten dazu kaufen soll.
    Überzeugt ;)
    Aber besser warte ich wohl noch, bis der dritte Teil auf Deutsch kommt, macht bestimmt mehr Spaß die Reihe am Stück zu lesen =)

  • Laini Taylor hat echt so einen krassen Universumsentwurf hiermit hingelegt, da könnte sie noch zig Trilogien drin ansiedeln… da könnte Cassandra Clare sich mal was von abgucken ;D

    Ich fand es im zweiten und dritten Teil ja ein bisschen schade, dass der Fokus so von Karou weggeht. Ich fand den Rest zwar auch interessant, aber sie ist und bleibt mein Liebling und ich hab sie vermisst als plötzlich ganze Kapitel aus einer neuen/fremden Sicht erzählt wurden. Aber das hat natürlich alles ne Menge Sinn gemacht, um die Welt zu erweitern und zu erklären.

    Mit den Verlusten ging es mir genauso. Bin zwar tierisch froh, dass es so viele bis zum Ende geschafft haben, aber war schon weniger dramatisch so :P

May 24, 2014