A review by nate_reads
Zorro by Isabel Allende

2.0

How is it that a character, a time period and a story that should be compelling fail to be so in the course of this book. The book is not about Zorro in his prime but more of a "Zorro Begins" story. There are always going to be comparisons between Zorro and Batman and those are on full display here as well although the character predates the latter in every sense of the word. This book serves as an origin story connecting flawlessly to the 1990s film "The Mask of Zorro." I wish this book had been better it had so many things to love historic setting of California, pirates, War of 1812, Napoleonic Wars, swashbuckling, Francisco Goya, secret societies, Romani, & Native Americans. Yet with all of those things this book drags throughout the middle the brief climax at the end isn't enough to redeem this book. I wanted to like this because I really like the movie and the character but this just didn't do it for me.