The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1) in MobileRead Book Challenges

Jul 17, 2017 Bror (Abrar) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, will-reread, recommended-to-me

Dear Carlose R. Zafon, I love you.
Fermín Romero de Torres you are the best character ever <3
RTC

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Aug 17, 2012 Paola rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: libri-in-italiano-books-in-italian

Well... I have to admit this was a page turner for me. Many things happening, very fast pace, engaging. atmospheric, taking place at a precise historical model, in a city that you feel pulsating. But thinking about it afterwards, it is somewhat cheap, in the sense that if you think about the plot with a cool mind, you must admit it is way over the top at many places.

Really, too much, c'mon. I don't want to give anything away here, because it is a thriller, and I hate it when reviews give anythi ...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Bjorn rated it liked it

Shelves: spain

Just finished The Shadow of the Wind and on a whole, I'm pretty happy with it being my first Holiday Read (TM) of the year. It's definitely a thriller, a pageturner as they say, with healthy doses of sex, violence and... OK, no rock'n'roll, but used books are kind of like rock'n'roll and there's a lot of those in it too. But it's a thriller written the way I wish more thrillers were; by a writer who might not be a genius but knows his craft, who can bring a setting and a character to life, make Just finished The Shadow of the Wind and on a whole, I'm pretty happy with it being my first Holiday Read (TM) of the year. It's definitely a thriller, a pageturner as they say, with healthy doses of sex, violence and... OK, no rock'n'roll, but used books are kind of like rock'n'roll and there's a lot of those in it too. But it's a thriller written the way I wish more thrillers were; by a writer who might not be a genius but knows his craft, who can bring a setting and a character to life, make you smell the dusty old pages or the fresh blood, and keeps you turning the pages not by having a cliffhanger on every fifth page and killing someone else every time he runs out of plot, but simply by setting up a complex plot and then letting it unfold bit by bit. Oh, and I like the fact that he sets it in a fascist dictatorship just a few years after a very divisive civil war but doesn't make a huge deal of it, just lets it seep through without constantly spelling it out for the reader; it's become normal to the characters, after all. And while it's not exactly Pereira Declares, it touches upon the literature-as-resistance plot but turns it into something more personal than political. Plus, lots of gothic horror novel influences too, can't complain about that.

That's the good news. The bad news? Well, like others have said, it goes on a little too long for an ending that's a little too predictable. That comes with the territory, I guess. And while some of the characters are nicely drawn, others - in particular the women - seem like pawns, prizes or plot devices in the boys' game a little too often. (It feels a bit a propos that one of the major clues is sold for the price of a prostitute.) But hey, it's a machismo culture and of course that's part of the plot too, so I'll overlook that. What's worse is Zafón's tendency to switch narrator when it fits the story; he stays in first person for most of the book, but at times he cannot figure out a way to develop the backstory and just goes into omniscient third for a few pages until we're up to scratch. It yanks me out of the story, reminds me that it's just a story after all, and I'm not too fond of that.

Maybe that's a little unfair to Zafón; after all, with all the weird coincidences and generally blurred lines between the story itself and the stories within it, we might just have a slightly unreliable narrator here (we'd almost have to, or there would be some things that just don't add up). Maybe the book is (or tries to be) smarter than it looks; maybe I should have kept a cooler head than the weather permits, and not let the Barcelona fog trick me. But for now, it's an enjoyable pageturner, no less, but probably no more. ...more

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Mar 13, 2011 EeeJay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

So many beautiful thoughts that I must read it again. And again. And again and.............

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Dec 04, 2012 Suzie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, 2020

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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May 30, 2016 Wanda rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, reviewed, 2016

Epic historical fiction set against a backdrop of civil war - think Doctor Zhivago or Gone with the Wind. It has so many quotable lines it's hard to choose a favorite but I was particularly struck by "...we are all bound together in a strange chain of destiny..." because it expresses the essence of this book so well. ...more

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May 15, 2009 Steve rated it really liked it

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Dec 06, 2009 aceflor added it

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Aug 22, 2010 Bianca van Willigenburg rated it liked it

Shelves: 2009, fiction

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Jan 12, 2011 redbees marked it as to-read

Shelves: to-read-already-own

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Mar 06, 2011 Orlok rated it really liked it

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Mar 14, 2011 Huma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: angular-relationships, murder-mystery, societal-issues, adult-themes, dark-n-disturbing, thriller, psychological, psychosexual, bittersweet-romance, favorites

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Jul 27, 2012 Judith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

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Aug 04, 2012 HomeInMyShoes rated it liked it

Shelves: 2012-booklist, fiction, aroundtheworld, mystery, historical-fiction, spain, bookclub

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Aug 12, 2012 Nancy rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction-in-translation, 2012-read, many-lands-2012, spain-portugal, books-about-books, graveyards

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Aug 12, 2012 JSWolf rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, ebooks, 2012

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Aug 21, 2012 Caleb Blake rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads

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Oct 06, 2012 Maria rated it it was amazing

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Jan 04, 2013 Nyssa marked it as wishlist · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, historical-fiction, mystery, suspense-thriller, speculative-fiction, magical-realism, series-book-1, grg-mobileread, books-about-books, gothic

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