whosemuse 's review for:

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

4.0

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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.