Daughter of Smoke and Bone

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 color. 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-colored 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?*


Laini Taylor has been one of my favorite authors ever since I picked up Blackbringer back in 2008 along with The Hunger Games. I'm not sure what exactly goes on in her head that produces all the amazingly creative worlds and creatures it does, but whatever it is, it must run on cactus juice. Daughter of Smoke and Bone is just as imaginative as Taylor's previous efforts. It's filled with jackal teeth, ultramarine hair and barred cities. It's received so many rave reviews that I honestly felt no doubt that it would spectacular. This is, after all, Laini Taylor.

Possess by Gretchen McNeil

Possess was a title I'd sure I would like. I mean Catholic exorcism, a biracial protagonist and San Francisco as a backdrop? What could go possibly wrong?

We're first introduced to said biracial protagonist, Bridget Liu, with her group of friends in Latin class. Her friends are solely male. This is a bit of a rare occurrence in YA since most heroines only have one True Friend. So I was pretty upbeat. Until I learned that out of the two, one was hopelessly in love with Bridget and the other was gay (and just as aware of previous guy's crush as Bridget). This brought the first alarm.