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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
challenging
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
No
Remeber me, Daniel, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.
It's not often you get to read a book you loved again as if for the first time. In the decade since I first read this one, almost every detail about it seeped out of my head. I knew it was on my Goodreads favorites list, that it involved some kind of mysterious library, and that it had a love story. That's it.
The Shadow of the Wind reads like a telenovela written by a Edgar Alan Poe fan— a combination I thoroughly enjoyed. It's full of femme fatales, more plot twists than a slinky, and lonely people trying to make sense of lives that didn't turn out the way they thought life would be in postwar Barcelona. This one sure wouldn't pass the Bechdel test, but it did regularly gut me with lines like, "for a moment I thought there were no more ghosts there than those of absence and loss, and that the light that smiled on me was borrowed light, real only as long as I could hold it in my eyes, second by second." I caught myself gasping at every twist, and couldn't fall asleep until I tore through the second half of the book.
Once she told me she was sorry she'd been a disappointment to me. I asked her where she'd got that ridiculous idea. 'From your eyes, Father, from your eyes,' she said. Not once did it occur to me that perhaps I'd been an even greater disappointment to her. Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.
It's not often you get to read a book you loved again as if for the first time. In the decade since I first read this one, almost every detail about it seeped out of my head. I knew it was on my Goodreads favorites list, that it involved some kind of mysterious library, and that it had a love story. That's it.
The Shadow of the Wind reads like a telenovela written by a Edgar Alan Poe fan— a combination I thoroughly enjoyed. It's full of femme fatales, more plot twists than a slinky, and lonely people trying to make sense of lives that didn't turn out the way they thought life would be in postwar Barcelona. This one sure wouldn't pass the Bechdel test, but it did regularly gut me with lines like, "for a moment I thought there were no more ghosts there than those of absence and loss, and that the light that smiled on me was borrowed light, real only as long as I could hold it in my eyes, second by second." I caught myself gasping at every twist, and couldn't fall asleep until I tore through the second half of the book.
Once she told me she was sorry she'd been a disappointment to me. I asked her where she'd got that ridiculous idea. 'From your eyes, Father, from your eyes,' she said. Not once did it occur to me that perhaps I'd been an even greater disappointment to her. Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
unique story focused on the power of love and revenge throughout time
