Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

Genre: Fantasy  

Publishing Info: Audiobook by Hodder & Stoughton, narrated by Kristin Hvam

Star Rating: 4/5

Back Cover Summary:

It began with Daughter of Smoke and Bone. It continued with Days of Blood and Starlight. It ends with Dreams of Gods and Monsters.

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.

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 theatre 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?

Dreams of Gods and Monsters is a good conclusion to the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, but it didn’t have the same impact as the first two. I adore Laini Taylor’s writing. It’s beautiful and flowing and she paints her stories so beautifully. However, this style slowed the pacing too much at times in this instalment. Some scenes, while written very well, dragged and it sucked the tension out of them.

The first half of the book was also too slow, and if I hadn’t already been invested from the first two, I may have put the book down. Which is shocking, considering how much I loved the previous books. If it had been trimmed a little and made a tad shorter, the pacing would have been improved. There were also a lot of scenes from a new character which I struggled to be invested in. While I understood their importance and, by the end, it made sense why she was included, I wanted to spend time with the characters I’d come to know and love across the series and was more invested in following the main plotline.

Despite being slow in places, there were also plenty shocking, heart-racing twisty scenes and set pieces. Moments that wrenched at my heartstrings and left me devastated, yet clinging to threads of hope. Laini Taylor does this so well across the series.

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