Book: The Shadow of the Wind
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Pages: 502
Read On: Paperback
How Long It Took Me To Read: 3 days
Plot Summary: Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
General Thoughts: I bought this book at some point in 2012 from a bookshop because the premise and plot sounded interesting. And then I didn't quite pick it up. For over 2 years! But I saw this book everywhere, it popped up everywhere. Especially on Tumblr. I just couldn't escape this book. This is a book about books and people, especially book people loved this book.
I finally got to this book last month and read it riveted.
Things I Loved:
1. The writing was absolutely wonderful and beautiful. I loved it.
2. The setting of this book was fantastic. The 1940s, through 1950s was a great time period to read about. Post-war and Post-Civil War Spain was a bleak and dark setting for this book and I really enjoyed reading about it.
3. Also, I had never read a book set in Spain before.
4. The characters in this book were wonderfully crafted and seemed real and flesh and bone people. The writer does a fantastic job of really getting inside the head and history of these characters and as a result, I felt like I got to know all of them really well.
5. There is sadness, regret, lost love and one-sided love in this book. It is sad but it doesn't bum you out. It's poignancy instead touches your heart.
6. This book is so many things at once, a gothic tale of romance, love, mystery, War crimes and the it's aftereffects. I loved the sheer scope and depth of this book. I have a feeling that this book has a little something for everyone.
7. This book is full of wisdom and lovely, just beautiful thoughts on books, life and people. I was busy tabbing this book up.
8. This book had me in it's grip from the first sentence. I was pulled into this tale and couldn't put it down. I read it as fast as I possibly could but at the same time I wanted to savour it's beauty.
9. This is a great coming of age story as well, we meet our lead character Daniel when he was only ten and we see him becoming the person he is, making mistakes, falling in love, getting caught up in this fantastic mystery and becoming a kind and considerate man.
10. There are two main tracks in this book. One is Daniel and his quest of finding about the book he has chanced upon and then there is the glorious back-story of Julian Carax and his friends and the mystery behind his life. Both these tracks are given equal importance and were both equally intriguing.
Things I Didn't Like:
While I loved this book, really loved this book, this was not a perfect book and I had several issues with this book.
1. The investigation that Daniel is doing into the past while interesting was a little bit too convenient. Things happened tooooooo easily. He met the right people at the drop of a hat and they were way too happy to tell him anything he needed to know. It was a little too much.
2. This book was a lot of things, like I said earlier, but one thing the book also was is a mystery. And this is where this book fails as far as I am concerned. I guessed every single thing there was to guess. Like seriously, every single thing! I was hoping against hope that there would be one twist, one surprise but there just wasn't.
3. This book is often talked of like it is a book about books, which it is..to an extent. But after a point not really.
Rating: 4/5
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