Beautiful words, beautiful stories, beautiful characters... you know, this is just one damn beautiful book. I am in awe of it. Can you fall in love with a book? If so, I'm guilty. I don't mean to sound condescending to young adult readers (I am one) but this book simply does not deserve the readership that thought [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307515757s/41865.jpg|3212258] was the best book ever written.

Everything about the marketing and presentation of this book does not convey how truly wonderful it is. Firstly, though the cover illustration is a stunning work of art, I think it tends to immediately appeal to younger readers and rule out an older audience. It's pretty... but it looks like a children's book. Same with the title... it's cute, very cute and it's quite a subtle representation of what the book is about... but again, it sounds like a cutesy [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307515757s/41865.jpg|3212258]-style romance. Another thing it has in common with the saga is the genre it is categorised in: paranormal romance.

But to say that [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307515757s/41865.jpg|3212258] and [b:Lips Touch: Three Times|7638021|Lips Touch Three Times|Laini Taylor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327932551s/7638021.jpg|6556598] are both paranormal romances is like saying tin and platinum are both metals. It's in an entirely different league. And I almost didn't read this because I saw reviews saying the first story was just like [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307515757s/41865.jpg|3212258]. No, no, no. The very main difference between the two is that [a:Laini Taylor|324620|Laini Taylor|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1224474224p2/324620.jpg] remembers the basic principle of quality writing.

Let's look at Bella Swan for a second... after four books what do we know about her?

1) She's that girl who's in love with a vampire
2) She's that girl who's in love with Edward Cullen
3) She's that girl... um, that's about it.

In one paragraph of that first story called 'Goblin Fruit', that according to some is "just like Twilight", this is Kizzy:

"Kizzy wanted to be a woman who would dive off the prow of a sailboat into the sea, who would fall back in a tangle of sheets, laughing, and who could dance a tango, lazily stroke a leopard with her bare foot, freeze an enemy's blood with her eyes, make promises she couldn't possibly keep, and then shift the world to keep them. She wanted to write memoirs and autograph them at a tiny bookshop in Rome, with a line of admirers snaking down a pink-lit alley. She wanted to make love on a balcony, ruin someone, trade in esoteric knowledge, watch strangers as coolly as a cat. She wanted to be inscrutable, have a drink named after her, a love song written for her, and a handsome adventurer's small airplane, champagne-christened Kizzy, which would vanish one day in a windstorm in Arabia so that she would have to mount a rescue operation involving camels, and wear an indigo veil against the stinging sand, just like the nomads. Kizzy wanted."

YES. In just one paragraph, [a:Laini Taylor|324620|Laini Taylor|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1224474224p2/324620.jpg] has created a far more complex character than [a:Stephenie Meyer|941441|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1269985304p2/941441.jpg] ever managed. And let me just say, this book is hard to quote from because the entire thing is a quotable masterpiece, you can find something beautiful in every single paragraph on every single page. I actually took longer than it would normally take me to finish a 250 page young adult novel, and not because it was hard work, but because I would read a few sentences, think "wow", and go back and read it again. And again. My only fault with it is that I finished the last story and wanted to cry because there wasn't any more.

Who is this [a:Laini Taylor|324620|Laini Taylor|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1224474224p2/324620.jpg] who seems to have appeared out of nowhere all of a sudden with her extraordinary writing and her pink hair? I don't know but I do know I'll be getting my hands on her future work if I have to sell my soul in exchange (yeah, that was a bit melodramatic but I haven't come out of fairyland yet). Read this, spread the word. 'tis fantastic!