Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Goodreads: Barcelona, 1945 - Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes one day to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetary of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.

Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a book from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the book he selects, a novel calld The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last of Carax's books in existence.

Before Daniel knows it, his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelonas darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love, and before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

Kritters Thoughts: A story about books and the pursuit of the real life drama behind the author. A joy is shared for the love of reading and how books can change one's life - a lesson that I loved hearing again. Divided into sections, it made this chunkster easy to tackle. My favorite section was towards the end which was a diary of sorts written to Daniel to help him understand the life and times of the author he was investigating - Julian Carax. Throughout the books there were holes and they were mostly filled in by this section.

A large cast of characters that took awhile to nail down made for some difficulties. I took to post its to help keep everyone and their relationships straight. At times, it was truly hard to remember how they were all related. I am sure that no one could have been cut to make it easier, but I definitely needed some help.

I definitely enjoyed this read. It was out of my usual genre - leant to me by a coworker, I was glad to take a break from my usual and read this one.

Rating:definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Pages: 487