For Book Week. I am reading a book by National Book Award finalist, Laini Taylor, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone has renewed my hope and faith in fiction. It’s the story of Karou, an art student in Prague. Karou has just discovered that her first boyfriend, Kaz, cheated on her with a mutual acquaintance.  She has broken up with him, but he isn’t taking no for an answer. He shows up to her art class as, surprise, the nude model she has to sketch. However, Karou was given a beaded necklace of wishes by her guardian, Brimstone. These beads represent the smallest available wishes, and with them Karou can make minor wishes. Some of her previous wishes have included the blue hair that flows straight from her scalp and the bushy eyebrows that she wished on a romantic rival — and in this case, Karou is so incensed that she uses her wishes to make her ex itch in some embarrassing places. She straddles two worlds: the world of mortals and the world of wishes and chimera. This book thrills me and I haven’t even read a quarter of it yet. Taylor spins an incredible otherworld full of women who are part snake and messengers who are part crow and part bat. This is the world of the chimera, creatures that appear to be the composites of several different types of animals. Brimstone sells wishes and he raised Karou. “[His] arms and massive torso were the only human parts of him, though the tough flesh that covered them was more hide than skin. His square pectorals were riven with ancient scar tissue, one nipple entirely obliterated by it, and his shoulders and back were etched in more scars: a network of puckered white cross-hatchings. Below the waist he became else-thing. His...