dark mysterious tense slow-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: Yes

i enjoyed the writing, the atmosphere, the characters. I fell in love with Isabella, and even David started meaning a lot to me in the end. 
however, i am utterly confused about what truly happened. a lot of things were unexplained, and no matter how much I think about it, I can't come up with an explanation

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ambience was so wonderful, but I remember being mostly confused for most of it.

May I just linger in smugness that I read this book in Spanish? I did. It was great. It's the perfect book for such a pursuit: heavy in plot twists and excitement, light in the sorts of ideas that make you bang your head against the ceiling of your language abilities. I love a thriller about readers and writers. This one wasn't quite as good as The Shadow of the Wind, but it still made marvelous escapist gothic reading.

El día menos pensado cumpliré treinta años y me daré cuenta de que cada día me parezco menos a la persona que quería ser cuando tenía quince

Inserte la crisis existencial de David Martín acá.

Definitivamente haber conocido a Carlos Ruiz Zafón ha sido una de las mejores cosas de la vida. Me ha dado la oportunidad de disfrutar, llorar y enamorarme con cada una de sus historias.

En el juego del ángel conocemos a David Martín. Un muchacho que quiere ser escritos y que la vida le presenta la oportunidad de serlo. Empieza escribir pequeños relatos en el periódico en el que trabaja, después es contratado por una editorial de a medio pelo que le proponen escribir una serie de libros bajo un pseudónimo y finalmente es contactado por un editor (bastante misterioso) que le propone escribir el libro de su vida, su obra maestra.

A lo largo del libro vemos cómo se va transformando David, va pasando de un muchacho soñador a un hombre realista y negativo que se va obsesionando con el lugar donde vive y va dejando de lado su pasión por la escritura. Vemos en el personaje de David, el peso de las decisiones de los demás y las propias y cómo esto afecta a los que nos rodean. David es un personaje fuerte y al mismo tiempo débil y en todo momento tenemos ganas de guardarlo porque su vida no es la mejor.

Conocemos también a otros personajes:
Pedro Vidal, que es el "mentor" de David (y honestamente no fue un personaje que me gustara mucho).
Cristina que es el amor de la vida de David, una mujer que ha sido también marcada por su vida y la decisión de los demás, pero que en el fondo se preocupa más por los otros que por ella.
Y para mi el mejor personaje de la historia que es Isabella. La amo, es fuerte, salvaje, decidida, sensible, soñadora y sobre todo la mejor amiga de David. Creo que el cariño de ella era totalmente incomparable y hasta el final fue la roca de todos. Después de conocerla y entender quién era, me encantó aún más.

La historia es maravillosa, al inicio me generó mucha confusión porque no me ubicaba temporalmente respecto a La Sombra del Viento, pero una vez fui avanzando ya empecé a entender un poco más. Aunque, a mi parecer en comparación con el libro anterior si queda un poco corto.

Y en cuanto al final, fue un total mindblowing; enserio quedé con demasiadas dudas y siento que algunas cosas no las entendí muy bien. Aún así, Zafón me va conquistando cada vez.
medium-paced

It took me a long time to get to this second installment of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books trilogy. The first was such a dark and twisty tale, I knew I'd have to be in the right mood to read more of the story. But this is a trilogy in the style of Robertson Davies, in which the characters are different but the setting is the same. This book is epically gothic, strewn with supernatural elements that are caught in the cracks of the narrative like debris spread about by eddies of breeze. The protagonist is such a hapless figure, at once slouching and careening through his unfortunate life, that I wanted to shake him and also hug him. Elements of the story came clear to me much earlier than they did to him, and the pile of tragedy that resulted from this lack of insight is much higher than it needed to be. Of course, he had insurmountable forces working against him, so I suppose he hardly stood a chance. To say I enjoyed this book might be a bit strong. I awarded it 4 stars for the quality of the writing and the consistency of the narrative tone, but I'm relieved to be done with this relentless bleakness and move on to something else.

I really wanted to like this book more than what I did. I did listen to it as an audio book and while I feel like I got the jest of it - I somehow failed to make a connection with it. Maybe part of it is seeing the ugly side of the publishing world which I don't want to think exists. I kept seeing this was a stand alone book and not a prequel, but it really is a prequel and that probably would have helped me to enjoy it more.
challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated

È fantastico, davvero fantastico. Zafon>>>. Il modo in cui scrive ti fa entrare in un'altra dimensione, è tutto descritto così perfettamente, con uno stile non banale ma nemmeno complicato da capire. I personaggi sono ben caratterizzati e l'ironia che usano è fantastica. Anche il mistero intrigante, ho smesso di leggerlo per un po' e mi sono persa un attimo qualche passaggio, ma mea culpa. 
blanca_leora's profile picture

blanca_leora's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH

I did not have enough time to read it (it was for school).
adventurous dark mysterious sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes