A review by mitskacir
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

2.0

This book was about twice as long as it needed to be, circling around the same story told in different snippets by different people. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough meat in the story to warrant the retellings. Characters' motivations were tenuous, and I often didn't understand the reasons for their actions. I suppose I would call this a "boy's book" - not because it would or would not be enjoyed by boys or people of other genders, but because of the sensibilities of the themes and tropes: you have male heroes rescuing their beautiful love interests; the lovable sleezebag whose penchant for pinching butts is amusing in a "it can't be helped!" way; to counter that, the prostitute with a heart of gold; the fact that all the women were love interests, with little to no personality, whose main purpose was to drive the passion (and therefore plot) of the male characters (this could happen in a variety of ways: men falling madly in love with them, men being rejected by them, men being jealous of other men because of them, men getting them pregnant and other men punishing them for it, men driven mad by their deaths, etc.); etc. Super struggled to get through this book.