On the Same Page: Days of Blood and Starlight

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WELCOME TO THE FIRST POST FOR “ON THE SAME PAGE”!

ON THE SAME PAGE is a new feature that Amy from Tripping Over Books, Alyssa from Books Take You Places and I have put together! It started out as the three of us forming an informal book club and reading the same book together but several months ago, we decided to make this a full-on feature and we’ve finally got everything ready for our first very official post! We actually had a sneak peek when we all reviewed Rose Under Fire back in September (at the time calling the feature “Three’s Company”) but we wanted the feature to be perfect so we held off until January to give us plenty of time to make it exactly the way we wanted it!

So what do we do? Besides reading a book together, we’re bringing you different aspects about the book that we feel are important. Whether we were inspired to create a playlist, digging a little deeper into the history of that particular setting, or pulling our favorite quotes, each of us will be bringing a different side of the book to share!

We actually have a few other important changes and merges regarding On the Same Page so be sure to check out the official page for it for more details!

Phew, now that we’ve got all the details out of the way, let’s get into the fun stuff and the feature! For January, Alyssa, Amy and I read DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT by Laini Taylor. It was quite the emotional read (review coming soon!) and we each had specific ideas for what we wanted to talk about with this book. For me? It was all about branching out into fantasy.

BRANCHING OUT INTO FANTASY

How Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series helped me fall in love with fantasy

      Days of Blood and Starlight

I’m not usually a fantasy girl. The extent of my fantasy reads up until last year ranged from Harry Potter to the occasional high fantasy like Graceling and Prophecy and after enjoying those, the promise that I’d start A Song of Ice and Fire because that was high fantasy too and I believed I would enjoy the series! I enjoyed magic, the paranormal and the supernatural, but there was always one thing standing in my way of fantasy and that was… how fantastical it was. Silly, right? I could believe in magic. I could get on board with vampires. But for some reason fantasy was always overwhelming for me. Paranormal and books like Harry Potter always appealed to me because they had roots that tied back to the world as we know it. The wizards of Britain separate their magic from the Muggle world, the vampires can’t let humans know they exist and so on. Too many fantasy books I had tried were too much of the unknown. Magical powers, new beings, AND a new world? It was just too much for me to latch onto.

My opinions have much since changed, but before I started blogging, I basically wrote off any book that had a map. *GASP* I know, right!? How much do I love maps now? (Tons.) At the time, I wasn’t reading the right books and was trying to dive headfirst into a genre that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with yet and for me, that just wasn’t the way to do it. All of the “new” concepts, characters, ideas, and lands just made it difficult for me to follow the plot and I quickly became disinterested or just couldn’t allow my brain to feel like this world could ever exist.

I also had an issue with what I like to call “creature fantasy”. This was the reason I didn’t enjoy the Lord of the Rings series (another gasp! I know.) and what made me so hesitant to pick up new fantasy reads. Hobbits? Dwarves? Elves? Then I had to learn these new creatures AND their interesting names AND the lands AND the villains? It was a lot for me to try to take in when it just wasn’t what I was used to. I also just couldn’t wrap my head around what these new creatures where supposed to be and humanlike creatures just didn’t feel believable.

I was extremely hesitant to pick up Daughter of Smoke and Bone last year. I was incredibly concerned with how big a part of the book the chimaera were and I was afraid this would turn out not to be a Brittany book. I had nothing to fear!

From starting Daughter of Smoke and Bone to finishing Days of Blood and Starlight, I’m starting to believe that I can really fall into fantasy if I read the right kind and really what I consider “right” for me is constantly changing for me as my reading tastes expand. I never thought I would care so much for chimera and seraphim but Laini Taylor’s writing is so beautiful and her plots are so delicately interwoven that every character becomes vital to the story and the reader really finds themselves wholly invested. These books made me really come to care for the characters and I was able to so easily lose myself in this story.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone really opened up the doors to fantasy for me. It made me confident to try new fantasy reads, more so than just high fantasy. It opened the doors I had closed off in my head to new ideas and different reads. It just goes to show you that the more you open yourself up to new genres and ideas, the more opportunities you have to discover new things. I’m so thankful for my fellow bloggers who had encouraged me to read this series and pushed me to step a bit out of my comfort zone to try a different kind of fantasy than I was used to!

Don’t forget to check out Alyssa’s and Amy’s posts for Days of Blood and Starlight today too!

Alyssa — Books Take You Places ||  Amy — Tripping Over Books

Hi, I'm Brittany!
Hi, I'm Brittany!

I'm an avid reader, candle-maker, and audiobook lover! Here you'll find book reviews, fun blog posts, and my other loves of photography & craft beer!

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10 thoughts on “On the Same Page: Days of Blood and Starlight

    1. Brittany Post author

      If I ever re-read these, I’m totally going for audio! I actually wanted to do the audio for this one but I already own the hardcover haha 🙂

      Reply
  1. Nicole

    Yay new feature! This is such a great idea! I personally love Fantasy. It is probably my favorite genre so I am so happy that you kept with it and found the right books to make you love it too. I think we all have that genre that we have to find the “right” books in, and that aren’t just natural loves.

    Laini Taylor is amazing. I want to reread/listen to Days of Blood and Starlight again before Dreams of Gods and Monsters comes out because so much happened and I don’t want to miss a thing in the last book.

    Can’t wait to see what you guys do next!

    Reply
  2. Amy

    B, I’m so, soooo glad that you read these books and were willing to push yourself to read outside your comfort zone. Perfect books to pick, in my opinion, but maybe I’m biased because I LOVE THEM SO HARD. And even though I LOVED Lord of the Rings, I can understand the hesitancy to read creature fantasy. It’s a totally different vibe (OMG I first wrote “animal” totally unintentionally, lol) than a fantasy like A Song of Ice and Fire. I love them both, and I’m glad that you love one of them!
    I can’t wait to read more books with you!

    Reply
  3. Kim @ The Nomadic Book Hoarder

    You didn’t love books with maps? *gasps* Glad you changed your ways haha. I’m quite the opposite of you, I’ve always loved fantasy and love to be transported to different worlds. Book set in our world and nothing paranormal about it? That was something I didn’t want to read! But I’ve been trying to read more contemporary lately and it’s working, partly because I found I actually do love contemporaries (silly me). Glad that you trying more fantasy books is working too! I have read and loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but I still need to read the sequel. I definitely agree with you on Laini Taylor’s writing; it is beautiful.

    Reply
  4. Angie

    I love maps soooo much!! Funny now if I read a book that is all about a world and new cities I want to see the map. I remember in the book series Legend I was disappointed that there wasn’t a map in the first book but in the second book the author did add a map. Good for you for trying something new!

    Reply
  5. Rebecca @ The Library Canary

    Love the new feature! I so want to read this book! I’ve always loved fantasy, but this year I realized that I don’t read too much of it. What??? So my goal this year is to read as much fantasy as I can. I absolutely love the genre. I think it’s because it really allows me to escape, you know? Nothing familiar about the worlds I’m reading about, nothing to relate to in my life. Does that make sense? Anyway, I’m so glad you’re enjoying the fantasy genre more now!

    Reply
  6. Pamela D

    I am glad to hear that you found fantasy books that work for you. There is so much variety in the fantasy genre, so I always feel confident that there is a fantasy book for everyone. 🙂

    Reply
  7. Stuti

    Yup.

    Daughter of Smoke and Bone. ‘Nuff said. I think if anyone’s vocab was limited to those words with the right kind of affliction, I’d have found a soul-reader.

    You’re so right about her making everything lively- especially magic. The books just… SO MUCH MAGIC! Without any overload of the high-fantasy books.

    Reply

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