The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1) in Reading with Style

Jul 23, 2017 Eman rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, historical-fiction, gothic, mystery-week

my best friend gifted me this book on my birthday last year. it took my a long time to read (start reading) because a) i make excuses for finding the 'right time' when i should just come clean and say i'm a procrastinator. but also b) this book was warmth and i did not want to get cold any time soon.

this is to say, this book has made it in a total of five countries since i had it.

i think the darkness that looms from love- love that twists into something ugly is one of the hardest blows this book ...more

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Oct 29, 2012 Thomas Acland rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2000-s, mystery, 21st-century, romance, gothic, set-in-spain, original-language-spanish

It’s a book about a person who loves to read and is set in Barcelona. I love reading and Barcelona is my favorite city in the world, so the combination of these two things in a single book was always going to be a winner. However these are only facade to the real brilliance of this novel, it is the storytelling of this novel that makes it one of the best books I have read this year. If you are writing a book describing the greatness of other novels (even if they are fictional) then you need to l It’s a book about a person who loves to read and is set in Barcelona. I love reading and Barcelona is my favorite city in the world, so the combination of these two things in a single book was always going to be a winner. However these are only facade to the real brilliance of this novel, it is the storytelling of this novel that makes it one of the best books I have read this year. If you are writing a book describing the greatness of other novels (even if they are fictional) then you need to leave the reader in no doubt that the story you have written is far better than any that might be mentioned in the novel.

The plot of the novel is certainly dark, it would be a very wide stretch to be able to call this a lighthearted or upbeat novel and the sinister nature of the book features heavily in the characters in the book. The setting of Barcelona shortly after the spanish civil war adds to this oppressive feeling making the reader fear the worst at every moment, while leaving just enough light to hope for the best.

I really liked the way in which the author told the story of Julian through both the investigation and the life of Daniel. Not everything was found through get works of investigation but many of the clues to Julian’s identity were found through the actions of Daniel and the way they mirrored those of a young Julian some 30 years earlier. The similarities of these two characters is something that is unmissable, Daniel’s path seems destined by fate to be linked with that of Julian and the more he uncovers about the mysterious author the closer their stories become.

The ending of this book I will not give away but once I got into the last 60 pages then to quote Stephen King the only way you would have got the book off me was “when you pried my cold, dead fingers off of the binding”. It is one of the best endings to a novel that I have read and takes the reader through a whole range of emotions from the verse of despair and the loss of all hope to moments of joy and triumph (and back again several times). It is not a book I am going to be forgetting in a hurry.
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Feb 24, 2016 Monique rated it liked it

A worthwhile read for the characters and the mystery. I always like a good mystery. Some of the descriptive language was a little heavy for my taste at times, but that might also be due to the translation. It was also a bit more sentimental at times than what I typically enjoy in a book, but again, the characters and story were interesting enough that I read through to the end and enjoyed the book very much. Zafón's other novels are for young readers, and my son has a few on his shelf. I look fo ...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Arturo Munoz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Muy buen libro, el autor mezcla todo lo que debe de tener cada obra; integra el amor en cada uno de los párrafos, el misterio en cada línea y mantiene al lector en una agonía de saber qué será lo que va a acontecer enseguida. Me gustó el libro aunque el final es muy típico.

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