Art done by Mikio Okamoto
The Shadow of the Wind - Review
Link to the author's (Carlos Ruiz Zafón) personal website
Genre: Fiction
Publication Type: Book
Tags:
- Average Age of Main Characters (19)
- Length (5 / 10)
Link to Goodreads
Blurb: Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, 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 Julian 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.
Review: This is one of my favourite books fullstop. I read this a bit before I probably should have, but it out of near any book except maybe Harry Potter genuinely influenced me, and it's effect pretty far past post-reading remains. So from the opening I adored this book.
The Cemetery of Forgotten Books just pulled me in from the get-go, and the concept of a mysterious tortured figure out there burning unworthy copies of certain novels just increased the draw. These I'd say aren't what the story revolves around though, and is rather just a thematically appropriate way to introduce and foresahdow the respective characters. The characters and brilliant writing (the translation is beyond reproach) are what make the book what it is. They're diverse, interesting, and unique, and the cumulative relationships between the characters spans the full spectrum. I loved Daniel, I loved Tomás, I loved Bea, I ached for Julián, I had mixed feelings for Clara, I black-heartedly loathed Fumero, and I fucking love that bits of this remain so incredibly clear after so long. So just to add some flavour, which is hopefully at this point redundant because you've already left this page to buy the book, I'll gush over the setting. Barcelona in the early 1900s was a great and interesting setting, and the two storylines with their eventual convergence was written beautifully.
I maybe went a bit over board with this review, but it's honestly a beautiful book. It is also part of a larger series, but I have been too scared to try it and risk ruining the pristine memories.