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A review by jujudepamplemousse
L'Ombre du vent by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
3.0
I am left with mixed feeling after finishing reading the Shadow of the Wind.
I found the way the book was constructed as a story within a story to be captivating. The global idea of the story was also interesting.
That said, several flaws completely spoiled the fun.
First, it felt like the author tried too much to write beautifully. The writing style was just overly descriptive. Each noun was completed by several adjectives and so it became tiresome and boring after a while. I also loved the atmosphere at the beginning of the book. It was mysterious, dark, captivating but it kind of lost it greatness as the book went on.
Second, the execution of the mystery was lacking. While the revelation piece by piece of the elements of the mystery was a delight, it sometimes didn’t make any sense. All along the book, the side characters were making revelation about things they couldn’t have known, either because it was someone else's personal though and feeling or because they were not even involved in the events.
Finally the most distracting point was the blatant sexism pouring all over the book. The Spanish society at the time of the story was not kind on woman and I’m not saying otherwise. However I don’t feel this needed to be portrayed this much on pages. The sexism was just overly present in this book. Plus, did we really need to know all the sexual thoughts and all the details about the sexual life of a teenage boy who, by the way, was only 11 years old at the beginning of the story? Well I didn’t, it was just creepy.
In the end, I like the idea of this book but the execution didn’t quite work for me.
I found the way the book was constructed as a story within a story to be captivating. The global idea of the story was also interesting.
That said, several flaws completely spoiled the fun.
First, it felt like the author tried too much to write beautifully. The writing style was just overly descriptive. Each noun was completed by several adjectives and so it became tiresome and boring after a while. I also loved the atmosphere at the beginning of the book. It was mysterious, dark, captivating but it kind of lost it greatness as the book went on.
Second, the execution of the mystery was lacking. While the revelation piece by piece of the elements of the mystery was a delight, it sometimes didn’t make any sense. All along the book, the side characters were making revelation about things they couldn’t have known, either because it was someone else's personal though and feeling or because they were not even involved in the events.
Finally the most distracting point was the blatant sexism pouring all over the book. The Spanish society at the time of the story was not kind on woman and I’m not saying otherwise. However I don’t feel this needed to be portrayed this much on pages. The sexism was just overly present in this book. Plus, did we really need to know all the sexual thoughts and all the details about the sexual life of a teenage boy who, by the way, was only 11 years old at the beginning of the story? Well I didn’t, it was just creepy.
In the end, I like the idea of this book but the execution didn’t quite work for me.