Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

Daughter of Smoke & Bone Series

Daughter of Smoke & Bone * Days of Blood & Starlight * Night of Cake & Puppets *
Dreams of Gods & Monsters

Publish Date: April 8th, 2014
Publisher: Hachette Audio, Audible Audio | Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format Reviewed: Audiobook
Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Narrated By: Khristine Hvam
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Introduction

The chimaera and seraphim war spills over into the human world, causing chaos on earth. An unsteady alliance is formed, and Karou and Akiva's long-ago dream of peace is rekindled. Meanwhile on earth, Eliza, a 24-year-old researcher, has dreams of monsters flooding the sky. Her occupation entangles her in the chimaera/seraphim conflict, but her past threatens to complicate her involvement. 

Side Story 

This book also starts out with new characters and a story that does intersect with the main story eventually. Until the first "twist" of Eliza's story, I didn't care too much. She does become very important later on, which has a bigger payoff to the side story than the second book's side story. Overall though, it weighted down on the main story. Listening to the audiobook in my car as I drove, I can't fast-forward through it (a sin, I know. If I was reading it I would have skimmed).

Audiobook

The narrator of the audiobook, Khristine Hvam, is fabulous. Liraz was previously pronounced "lah-ratz" and now it's more like "lee-raz", which is probably more accurate, but I listened to two books with the first pronunciation and now it's jarring. Other than that, I'm going to miss hearing this amazing narrator.

Ending

Ouch, that ending. I feel like it cut off when an even BIGGER conflict was introduced. I expected there to be another series about this mega scary terrible threat but...not as of now. That was disappointing.

Final Verdict

The end of the trilogy still held me as did the other books, though I wasn't too interested in Eliza's story until maybe about half-way. The writing is still beautiful, though it gets a bit repetitious with the constant reminds that Zuzana looks like a doll. I was also hoping to learn more about the Stelians, especially after they come off as some kind of nefarious force. The ending also cut off by introducing a great threat and leaving the reader hanging, so that was not very cool. But overall, we got to see the ending to the big plot points and we got to see the conclusions to a lot of characters, and it was great.