People have said many things about this book. The accolades have piled up and spilled over. The detractors also have a voice. How I felt about this book... hmm... I liked it but I wasn't blown away by it the way I was by Chime. Let me explain why.The first half of the book is fantastic. Ms. Taylor writes beautifully and her prose is like the feel of silk against your skin - rich and decadent. Karou is intensely unique. She is beautiful, spunky and so very different from everyone around her. Her best friend is not just an accessory character whose entire purpose is to make the protagonist look good. No, the friend whose name I've forgotten is actually characterized very well (as is her boyfriend). The world the story is set in comes to light around the reader - bringing to mind some gothic city with spiraling towers and grey buildings full of history, mystery and intrigue. And in the midst of it all is the blue haired protagonist who herself is a mystery. Her heartbreak is important because it makes her vulnerability more apparent. Her yearning for a family and the monsters she calls her own. These are all very well done and I was entranced, as I mentioned before, by the writing.I loved that the setting is foreign and unfamiliar. But here's where the book started to lose its lustre for me. The romance. I may be alone here but I think that authors lose so much tension in the novel when they capitulate and elaborate on the romance. Less is always more where is concerned. You need to titillate and you can do that by the tiniest gestures and the most random encounters (I present to you Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road as evidence). There are way too many sappy scenes in the second half of the novel and whenever the author deluges me with the sappiness, I somehow know that the denouement of the novel will not be a happy one, at least where the romance is concerned. It's that great foreshadowing that makes a book predictable. In my opinion, if the story of Madrigal was given the same complexity as Karou's present day life (in the first half), then I would have liked it better. As it is, much of Madrigal's section was spent on the romance taking away the needed development of her character.Karou does not equal to Madrigal. I didn't feel that. Karou seemed interesting in her own right and I was so sad when I learned that she would be subsumed by Madrigal. I felt cheated, to be honest. The mythology is very well constructed and the themes of identity and physicality that Taylor explores is also compelling. I just wish she hadn't dipped so much into the romance. I wish she had focused just a bit more on Madrigal so that I could reconcile myself to that big reveal. Oh Akiva? I didn't think much of him, to be honest. He wasn't created in a manner that coloured him distinct from other love interests in the genre. He is angel, tortured, in love, loyal. Remarkable qualities but nothing distinctive. There are other angel boys out there. He doesn't even have blue hair. : Anyway, this is just my opinion. The four stars is because the writing really is gorgeous and deserves it.
