The confusing Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Let me preface by saying: I read this in the original language and I’m from barcelona. Also I don’t really like historical fiction set in the Spanish civil war nor do I really like mystery. It was given as a gift so… I read it.
Good things
Barcelona: as someone who lives there, I loved the description and how the city lived up to the reality of it. It acc felt like I was in the streets described. Which is funny bc I’ve acc been there. So it felt nice to have a beautiful representation of my city.
Writing: not as bad as some ppl are describing it to be (but it’s no dickens or dostoesky)
Bad things
Every single person is just conveniently happy enough to talk to the mc about Julián plus everyone knows something about Julián and the info never coincides. Also everyone is just happy to just tell this random kid about their entire history, life, problems…??? Like what. There’s even a point in the story where one of the characters SEEKS THEM OUT TO TALK TO THEM. He resists for a millisecond but agrees to talk to them FOR A LEMON CARAMEL. Don’t get me wrong sugus are classic candy. BUT LEMON FAVOUR?!
Secondly and the biggest downside about this book: the INFO DUMPS. Instead of showing us, he literally told us about every single thing ab this mystery. There were pages and pages and pages and pages of just info dumping form those ppl who just knew everything ab Julian. It’s ridiculous. There’s even a point towards the end of the book that there’s a letter just telling us ev ab the mystery. It’s 100 pages.
I hated the info dumps so much. It was boring and it felt like lazy writing. It is lazy writing.
Thirdly: the mystery.
It feels like the author wrote the story of Julian then added Daniel as an afterthought. I don’t know how to describe it but both stories felt extremely disconnected.
Fourth: the info dumps. I cannot stress enough how fucking annoying the info dumps were.
Fifth: the mystery was quite obvious. I figured out the ending by like page 100. And, I did not care enough ab the characters to acc care ab the mystery.
Anyways. By no means is this the worst book ever out there. The thing is, it’s a pretty well known author so I’m going to put him on the same standard as I would with similar types of narratives.
I’m sure ppl out there are meant to read this book. Heck my friend who gave it to me loves it. But it wasn’t for me. And tbh I hated it.
Let’s not fucking forget ab the fact that because Clara reject Daniel her karma is to be ugly and have a bad life. Em what.
Oh yes, let’s not forget about the amount of sexism there is in this book.
Woman as a character? Love interest and no personality.