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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
Con su estilo tan único, y con una historia tan fantástica como triste, Carlos Ruiz Zafón vuelve a sorprender y encantar con su narración e imaginación.
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
O que dizer deste livro!?... Leitura viciante do início ao fim.. aquele mistério, aquela Barcelona sombria... Zafón não desilude.
Nostalgiskt att läsa Ruiz Zafón igen som jag älskade som barn/ung (vill hävda att jag fortfarande är ganska ung). Magiskt språk och finstämd handling. Lite läskig emellanåt.
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
4.5 stars
The feeling I got when reading Marina was that of reading Poe or Robert Louis Stevenson or Mary Shelley (there's even an obvious shout-out with a Dr. Shelley as one of the characters).
A young, naive male protagonist is swept up into hidden, horrific events.
The cool thing about Zafon for me is that while i have some exposure to the seamy and fantastical undersides of London and Paris, up til now I hadn't the same courtly sensibility/class distinction/European horror framing of a Spanish City.
Zafon does it for Barcelona in this book.
Oscar Drai is a young boarding school student in Barcelona with a propensity for solitary wandering. He wanders into a (he thought) abandoned household and instead finds a young girl living with her artist father. Together, the boy and the girl witness strange happenings in a graveyard, and intrigued by the symbol of a black butterfly, uncover some fairly horrific and gruesome monstrosities perpetuated by a supposedly-dead industrialist.
Zafon's imagining of the industrialist's creations are cinemagically both blatant and awful. The English translation must do the original prose justice as I was never thrown out of the text by vagueness or obviously awkward turns of phrases. Whether I liked it or not, the industrialists' gruesome creations formed into solid creatures in my mind due the descriptive expression of the prose.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. Horror/Dark Fantasy fans will enjoy it. I wouldn't recommend it for middle grade or younger YA readers unless they already have been exposed to some gruesomeness a la old time Poe in their reading.
The feeling I got when reading Marina was that of reading Poe or Robert Louis Stevenson or Mary Shelley (there's even an obvious shout-out with a Dr. Shelley as one of the characters).
A young, naive male protagonist is swept up into hidden, horrific events.
The cool thing about Zafon for me is that while i have some exposure to the seamy and fantastical undersides of London and Paris, up til now I hadn't the same courtly sensibility/class distinction/European horror framing of a Spanish City.
Zafon does it for Barcelona in this book.
Oscar Drai is a young boarding school student in Barcelona with a propensity for solitary wandering. He wanders into a (he thought) abandoned household and instead finds a young girl living with her artist father. Together, the boy and the girl witness strange happenings in a graveyard, and intrigued by the symbol of a black butterfly, uncover some fairly horrific and gruesome monstrosities perpetuated by a supposedly-dead industrialist.
Zafon's imagining of the industrialist's creations are cinemagically both blatant and awful. The English translation must do the original prose justice as I was never thrown out of the text by vagueness or obviously awkward turns of phrases. Whether I liked it or not, the industrialists' gruesome creations formed into solid creatures in my mind due the descriptive expression of the prose.
This is not a book for the faint of heart. Horror/Dark Fantasy fans will enjoy it. I wouldn't recommend it for middle grade or younger YA readers unless they already have been exposed to some gruesomeness a la old time Poe in their reading.
