Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Feita de Fumaça e Osso

The story follows a seventeen year old girl named Karou who lives in Prague and is an art student. She lives in an apartment, tries to avoid her obnoxious ex-boyfriend and eats goulash at Poison Kitchen with her best friend, Zuzana. Karou also spends time filling up sketchbooks with rich drawings of monsters, creatures that are half human and half animal and some that are just a mixture of animals. But what her art classmates and Zuzana don’t know is that all of those creatures in her sketchbooks are real.

Karou was raised by a chimaera named Brimstone, who is a mixture of many creatures, along with a few other chimaera that live in the Elsewhere, as Brimstone calls it. She does not know who her parents are and has only ever known these creatures as her family. Karou is able to enter Elsewhere through specific portals around the world where Brimstone works and the other chimaera do as well. She runs errands for Brimstone, collecting teeth through out the world from different animals… and different humans, too. Brimstone does not tell Karou why he needs teeth and mainly she runs these errands because he asks her to, not because she wants to. She has no idea how sinister these errands actually are and what their purpose is.

I quite liked the first part of the story, the rich details of the characters and the exciting (but also dangerous) adventures that Karou goes on. She leads a double life, one foot in the real world and the other in the magical. I enjoyed her normal life too, Karou laughing with Zuzana and avoiding her ex-boyfriend like the plague, living the life of a normal teenager.

In the middle of the book, we discover that the chimaera have an enemy–the seraphim, human-like beings that are extremely beautiful with gigantic powerful wings and even more powerful warriors. There are three seraph that come to the world to close the portals to Elsewhere so that Brimstone cannot get his teeth.

Things begin to escalate when Karou opens the door in Brimstone’s office that leads to the chimaera world, which she was always forbidden to open, and a chimaera sees the hamsas on her hands. Brimstone throws her out in a rage, yelling at her that she has no idea what she has just done. But Karou has no idea who she is, what her hamsa on her hands mean and why this will have devastating consequences.

The later half of the book changes perspectives completely and we are introduced to Madigral, a beautiful chimaera. On the battle field nineteen years ago, she saves Akiva’s life and he comes back two years later to save hers. This part of the book was my absolute favorite. This part redeemed itself from the previous instalove parts because it was just so beautiful. As the stakes are raised and their love story intensifies, Taylor begins to tie all the loose strings together.

The ending blew my mind, I saw none of that coming. The way everything was so intricately connected together; the wishbone, Madigral, Akiva, Karou and Brimstone. I am so glad that I stuck with this book and finished it. The scenery, the descriptions, the world itself was beautiful and horrifying, as most worlds are. The way that Taylor wove such a story of love and redemption, I now know why so many love this series.

Content Warnings

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adventurous funny mysterious sad

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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