REVIEW: Days of Blood and Starlight (#2) - Laini Taylor

Title: Days of Blood and Starlight (#2)
Author: Laini Taylor
Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Publisher: Hodder & Staughton
Format: Paperback
Pages: 513 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

Thoughts

I picked this up as part of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone readathon hosted by Little Book Owl on YouTube.

I will admit that when I started reading this book, I did find it a bit slow going, and thought that it would be following the same path that a lot of sequels in trilogies do and that is just be a filler book before it all kicks off in the finale.

I really enjoyed seeing the different stories of Karou and Akiva, and learning more about their pasts and their relationships. I loved seeing Akiva together with Lireal and Hazeal, I found them to be so good together and just want to read more about them.
I also found myself loving Ziri, and he was my favourite character during this book. I just found him to be such a hidden gem of a character, he wanted to believe more about Karou and starts to question Thiago's leadership.

I found that I did enjoy this book more that Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and just found myself breezing through it, I don't know if this was because the book kept such a fast pace once it got going.

Overall, I really enjoyed this sequel and found myself wanting to know what happens next especially after the cliffhanger at the end of the book.