The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Feb 06, 2022 Shannon rated it it was amazing

“Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.”

This is a book for book-lovers, for those who revel in stories and devour them insatiably. The unique and stirring storytelling unfolds in surprising ways. When you open this book, you do not find yourself reading just one story, ...more

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Sep 16, 2009 Gina rated it really liked it

Well, this book seemed to take forever, but it was worth the effort. The descriptions throughout were so beautifully done, and I was completely transported into each scene. I'm not exactly sure what made the book so slow for me. Perhaps it was do to the translation from Spanish to English? Or maybe it was the thick paragraphs and lack of any strong action, although there was a great action scene towards the endof the book. I loved the Cemetary of Forgotten books, and found myself wishing that I ...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Sarah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

The story underpinning this book is a good one: the mystery and tragedy of the life of Julian Carax, and the danger the young Daniel Sempere gets himself into whilst investigating said events. There are some great twists and turns, one of which in particular I would never have guessed and was a real shocker when revealed.

Unfortunately, much of the way in which the book was executed I did not enjoy. There was far too much exposition for my liking and it really dragged far too often. I found the p The story underpinning this book is a good one: the mystery and tragedy of the life of Julian Carax, and the danger the young Daniel Sempere gets himself into whilst investigating said events. There are some great twists and turns, one of which in particular I would never have guessed and was a real shocker when revealed.

Unfortunately, much of the way in which the book was executed I did not enjoy. There was far too much exposition for my liking and it really dragged far too often. I found the prose, dialogue and characters pretentious a lot of the time, which left me cold to their plights as I just didn't connect with them.

This book suffered from one of the same problems I bemoaned after finishing The Snowman - the author is from Barcelona and the book is set in Barcelona, both of which the reader is never allowed to forget. I in fact felt like I was constantly being beaten about the head with the fact that the book is set in Barcelona, which got annoying and boring really quickly. On rare occasion the location of events was actually important to the plot or mechanics of any given scene, but the most of the time the reader is barraged with street names, churches, plazas and other geographical minutia of Barcelona that do not matter one jot and only serve to clutter the prose and distract from what's actually important in the current scene.

I also found that the dialogue, thought processes and general demeanour of the main character hardly changed throughout the book, despite him being 11 when it starts and around 20 when the main action of the book finishes. He was just a young adult the whole way through, really, and I found it hard to keep track of the amount of time passing due to him seeming to be a young adult pretty much the whole way through.

I picked this up from a second hand book shop a few years ago and only just got round to reading it. In the intervening time I picked up a follow-on book by the same author, but I think I'll be giving them both away as I doubt I'd enjoy the other one any more than I did this. ...more

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Apr 10, 2008 Kathleen C. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It took me a while to get through this book. There would be times when I would speed through it and other times where I would get lost which will cause me to put down the book to pick it up a few days/weeks later. This is not to say that this was not a good book. The story was complex (a story within a story within a story), plenty of intrigue and a mystery that was waiting to be solved.

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Mar 30, 2010 Julia rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi-fantasy, history, mystery, politics, audio-books

Lyrically written, and a good tale full of compelling characters set in a time/place about which I know very little. Surreal in the best way possible.

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