Could've Been Better ?

I had finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón some time ago and I have to say, it was a bit disappointing. Especially at the end, I feel that's where it turned to a path I wasn't expecting.

But first, I'll tell you a little bit about the book.

The Shadow of the Wind is a story of a boy, Daniel Sempere, who discovers a mysterious book titled The Shadow of the Wind by a Julian Carax when his father took him to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books. When Daniel set out to look for more of the author's books, he makes a shocking discovery: somebody has been hunting down Carax's books and destroying them. In fact Daniel may have one of the last books in existence. As Daniel goes out to search for the rest of the books, he unravels one of Barcelona's deepest secrets. One of murder, madness, and forbidden love.

Based on the summary and some scenes of the book, I had thought the book was going to involve magic especially when the author had written about Jacinta Coronado and her past. There were also a lot of parallels between Daniel and the author Julian Carax. And some parallels between reality and the book such as Laín Coubert, a pseudonym both the Devil (in the fictional book) and another character (in the actual book) use. Unfortunately it didn't involve magic at all, not in the main story and the part about Coronado's past seemed unnecessary.

The atmosphere of the book was very dark and gothic. It had a mysterious air to it so the ending was a bit weird because the mystery wasn't really solved like a mystery. Throughout the book, I mentally raised my hand quite a few times and many were answered. Most of them all at once [hint].

The characters all have the same voice (or the same type of voice) except for Fermin.

The writing was beautiful, don't get me wrong. The man is good with words and he knows to create an atmosphere but I can't say much about his storytelling. A lot of it was repetitive because of the parallels and...

I don't know. This review is all over the place and I don't even have the book with me.

There were a lot of words but not a lot of meaning. Not a lot of substance.

To me, this book is like a beautifully decorated cake. So beautiful, you may not even want to touch it because it's too beautiful to eat. Except when you actually do give it a try, it's bland.

The cake is bland.

But if you are into the angst-filled, forbidden love, really descriptive and wordy, that type of thing, I guess you might enjoy it. I mean I'm into that kind of stuff too but I guess you have to be in a specific mood to enjoy it. And to have that enjoyment last the entire book.

I give this book a 3 out of 5. I like it because the writing was poetic and the atmosphere was dark. I hate it for everything else. This book had potential but it wasted that potential.

I'm sorry I can't talk anymore about this book but The Shadow of the Wind is the type of book where almost everything is a spoiler.