Daughter of Smoke and Bone | AudioBook Review

Daughter of Smoke and Bone - AudioBook Version
Laini Taylor (Narranted by Khristine Hvam)
Genres: Young Adult, Supernatural, Fantasy, Romance
Publication Date: September 27th 2011
Number of Pages: 424
Source: Audibles (Free 30 day trial)

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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 otherworldly 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 colour. 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-coloured 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?

I picked Daughter of Smoke and Bone as my Audibles free trial audiobook because of the good reviews I had seen via goodreads as well as my thoughts on getting 'value for money' as it was approximately 12 hours long compared to the common 6-8 hours long. I have to say that with hindsight I maybe should of picked a shorter one as my first audiobook experience as the length of this did make it drag a little as I was listening to about 2.5 hours a week. However, despite that I still think that this story was incredible and the narrator made this book for me.

The story of Daughter of Smoke and Bone takes us through the streets of Prague (loved this setting as I visited there early this year so I could fully re-imagine this setting within the book) and Marrakesh. With blue-haired Karou as our main narrator within this book we experience her normal life at art school with humans and then her personal life living with the Chimaera, who's appearance is a mix of human and animals.
As we discover there is more and more about the magical world of the Chimaera and her guardian's, Bristone, magical abilities which all centres around using teeth (yuck!). As the story develops, we soon realise that not all is simple in Karou's world and that external forces are content at taking away every she holds dear.

The twists and turns within this book were incredible and were not lost through listening to the Audiobook. I personally think the narrator's talent for voicing the different characters such as Brimstone and Zuzannah really made this book for me. I do however think that the Audiobook was slightly harder to follow when aspects of the story jumped from present to past though as this was difficult to distinguish until about a minute into the change. However, this was a small issue for me as I soon realised where the story was and started to understand it again quickly.

Overall this was an enjoyable audiobook to listen to and I would certainly recommend it as well as the Audibles service. I look forward to getting stuck into the sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight, as the ending to Daughter of Smoke and Bone was such a cliffhanger.

In general, I like using Audiobooks are they are great for listening to during my long commutes home from work everyday - listening to a story through my car speaker is not only company but it also always me to read more than I would normally have time for during a work day. I certainly will be listening to more in the future ^_^.