Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind

Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind

This month's book club book was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

The Shadow of the Wind

My rating: 4 out of 5 bookmarks

Summary from Amazon page: 

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.

My review:

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I was pulled in from the beginning. The characters felt human; they made mistakes. 

There were a few times I got frustrated and I might have stopped reading. The information we were learning along with the main character was so confusing and difficult to make sense of (part of what makes the book good, I now know), that I just wanted to give up. I had trouble remembering all the bits and pieces. Luckily, there's a nice summary of everything towards the end that explains it all from start to finish, or I might have thrown the book out the window. 

Daniel, the main character, is truly a young boy that doesn't know what he's getting into. He's just curious. I'm glad it wasn't easy for him, it made it seem that much more real. Fermin was a wonderful character. I would love to have a friend like him. I'm not sure I cared much for Bea, her character wasn't developed very well, in my opinion. I also would have liked to have seen more of Daniel's father. Lain Coubert was a frightening character, for good reason as we find out in the end. I could say more about many more characters, but I don't want to give too much away. 

So why did I rate this 4 out of 5? Because in the end, it was a really well written story and I wanted to know what happened and therefore kept reading. I'm also a sucker for happy endings.