The Caffeinated Diva reads...

I closed the book after the final page and wondered to myself... why did I wait so long to read this book?  The story, the characters, the writing... all of them were so enchanting and engrossing.  Everything about this book was magical!

Set in the city of Prague, Karou lives alone in a flat and attends art school.  Her sketchbooks are filled with fantastical drawings that her best friend and fellow students yearn to see.  But she has secrets, secrets that not even her best friend knows.  And as many secrets as she herself keeps, there are secrets kept from her, too.  The kind of secrets that change everything.  These secrets also make the feelings she comes to have for Akiva even more tumultuous and chaotic.

The author's writing is beautiful, as is her world building.  It was like reading a fairy tale with its lyrical prose.  The mythos of the angels is very different from the traditional Christian conception that most of us are familiar with.  And even more interesting is that these angels are generally on the "evil" side of the "good versus evil" construct.  But the insights into the world of the angels through Akiva make one thing very clear... there are two perspectives to be had for each and every situation.

This is a story of love and coming together, but it is also a world about perceptions and fighting for what you believe in.  It's about the struggle that comes from within and without when your ideology bucks against that which is expected.  It is, simply put, beautiful.