Thoughts on mythology and DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE

Photo source: fantasticfiction.co.uk

This weekend I finished reading Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I loved the book for a lot of reasons—characters, setting, just plain good writing—but one of the things that really struck me was the way that the author used and re-imagined mythology. I think this can be a tricky thing to do, and we see it fairly often in YA and middle grade—mythology tweaked to fit the story. Werewolves who change according to the temperature rather than the fullness of the moon (Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver), vampires who come out during the day (Twilight by Stephanie Meyer; Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy), and I'm sure there are loads of other examples. The thing is, this normally irritates me, because I find it jarring and that makes it hard for me to get into the story.

But with Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I didn't get that at all. I found the world of the chimaeras and the seraphim very believable within the context of the story. More so than that, I loved the mythology within the mythology—the fact that both chimaera and seraphim have very different—and beautiful—legends that explain their own origins and the origins of their enemies. These stories in themselves tell us a lot about the fictional cultures from which they arose.

So I'm trying to figure out what it is about this book that made me love it when most books with this kind of set up just annoy me. I think it all comes down to the quality of the writing. Laini Taylor can write, there's no doubt about that. But more than just the skin and bones of good sentence structure, pacing, or even good characters (though those all help). I think it's the utter originality of the story that hooked me and kept me reading. It was so much more than "paranormal dude becomes obsessed with an ordinary high school girl". Karou, the protagonist, is interesting in herself—confident, artistic, physically strong, yet simultaneously flawed and confused. She, the angel Akiva, the chimaera Brimstone—in fact all of the main characters—are complex and believable. And lines between good and evil aren't clear; there's a lot of gray. Plus, without spoilers, the way the story falls together at the end of the novel is beautiful; it's seamless.

I guess the re-imagining of mythology in this novel didn't feel like laziness or crowbarring—it was artfully done and it made sense. Which, now that I think about it, is true for all good writing.

***

So, what are your favorite/least favorite books that re-work old legends? Or do you think that it's best if modern authors stay away from mythology entirely? Let me know in the comments!