Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Liani Taylor

Kerou lives in Prague studying art. She is a typical teenager with typical teenage problems of love, betrayal and heartbreak. But is she? Kerou's family is strange. They are chimaera, half beasts and half human. She is sent on expeditions throughout the world by magic to collect teeth from sellers. Her foster father Brimstone is a wishmonger, one who grants wishes in return for teeth. Kerou though lived with her strange family and have run many errands for them have never questioned them about why they collect teeth or why she is different from them, what do they do with the teeth? Who or what are they? But when mysterious marks appear over the doors of the secret portal all over the world, and Kerou is attacked by an Angel, she has to find the answers for these questions because when the doors burned she loses the only connection to her family. How will she find them? Who is the angel? Why does he want her dead?

I picked this book for the various challenges but also because of the title which was creepy to me. I was expecting something dark, something scary, creepy kind of book. Especially the bit about collecting teeth, how creepy could it be! But this is a love story. Bored with teenagers of warring families falling in love creating mayhem and pain? Make the teenagers from different worlds, different species, Angels and Demons- perfect love story or is it?

I found the ball scene in the end to be grotesque while it should have been romantic, I think. Imagine various creature with different parts of beasts for different parts of body wearing a mask, dancing, sugared and all. Doesn't bide well with me.

The narrative kept me interested in what was going on, though there was a lag here and there. I liked the new twist about Angels and Demons. Not all beautiful things are good, and not all grotesque are evil. Not all Angels are good, not all chimaera are evil! And Angels and Chimaera are at war!