MY RATING
Overall rating: 7.75/10 stars
Characters: 9/10
Pacing: 6/10
Story: 7/10
Ending/Wrapup: 9/10
“I can tell you how you act when you get your soul back. You save lives. You let yourself dream again. You forgive.”
Dreams of Gods and Monsters was a relatively satisfying
conclusion to the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. I feel like the
plot wrapped the story up pretty well, though I did feel like it dragged on
slightly in some places. I also felt like all of the main characters got some
sort of conclusion to their journey and I was very happy with how the character’s
stories were wrapped up. While I did enjoy this book, I do feel like it didn’t
quite live up to Days of Blood and Starlight, which is definitely my
favorite installment in the series. I was expecting a bit more action and
bloodshed, if I’m being honest. And although the characters did have a lot of
shit they had to go through, it just didn’t feel like the stakes were as high
as they’d been set up to be for this finale. However, I did really like this
book and it was a pretty solid ending for the story.
Eliza was by far the most intriguing and mysterious addition
to this series. I was really invested in her story and was constantly trying to
piece together what her background might be. I definitely felt like she was
eventually going to join up with the chimaera – and was happy to be proven
right – but I was still surprised when her full backstory was revealed, which
involved her parent’s cult. But a large chunk of the story, I was convinced
that she was most likely a chimaera or seraphim without full knowledge of her heritage,
and was thus caught off guard by the turn of events. I definitely wish that she
would have gotten more screentime. I actually feel like her story would have
been better off already being introduced in the second book of this series.
As always, Zuzana and Mik were just beyond funny and
adorable. I’m so glad when he finally ended up proposing to her! I also absolutely
freaked out when Mik ended up stealing Esther’s last wishes, which was beyond
awesome. Something that also really touched me is just how willing Zuzana was
to follow Karou everywhere, even to the ends of the universe. Their friendship
is something that I really appreciate about this series, and I definitely wish
that we would have seen more them together.
The sweetest thing that we got to see unfold in this book
though was the relationship between Liraz and Ziri. Sweet, sweet Ziri. I honestly
was ready to go completely berserk when I thought that Laini Taylor had killed
him off at the end of the book. I swear that when Karou felt his soul in Liraz’s
canteen, I teared up quite a bit. Seeing these two souls find their way to one another
was incredibly sweet and satisfying. Liraz has really been such an amazing character
and I was really happy that she also finally got her own happy ending and was
able to find happiness and love.
The plot was pretty good overall, although I did feel like
there wasn’t much of a climax. For example, I didn’t expect Karou to tell Akiva
about Thiago and that he was actually Ziri. When she did, it already felt like
some of the tension that had been set up for this finale had been diffused,
which was a bit of a shame. And while I definitely found the reveal of the
Continuum universe to be incredibly fascinating, it was unfortunate that it was
only really brought up towards the end of the book. After Jael’s defeat and the
plot-twist that happened between Scarab and Akiva, I genuinely wasn’t sure how
these turn of events were going to wrap up. While the majority of the book had
a plot that was relatively slow-paced, the ending definitely sped things up,
and I was happy to see that everything wrapped up in the end. I actually really
loved the bittersweet note in the ending between Karou and Akiva. I’m not sure
why, but I’m a huge sucker for bittersweet endings (e.g. The Hunger Games).
My overall thoughts were that this book was very good and entertaining.
Sometimes I wish that the plot would have sped up slightly faster and I wish
that some elements to the story would have been introduced earlier on (e.g. Eliza
as a character, the reveal of the Continuum and the Cataclysm). This would have
in my opinion definitely raised the stakes for the finale and would have made
the story go out with a slightly bigger bang. But as I said, I did love this
book and was very happy that I finished this series. Laini Taylor is definitely
a very gifted author, and I look forward to reading more of her works in the
future.
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