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A review by justabridge
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I am really sad to have not liked this one - I’d heard such good things about it, but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I’m finding I really don’t enjoy protagonists in gothic novels; of the ones I’ve read, they tend to be bystanders, quite inactive in terms of the plot, and quite limp in terms of personality and internal drive. Daniel really hit these boxes, and so I struggled reading from his perspective.
I also found the story quite confused - did it want to be Daniel’s story? Or did it want to be Julian Carax’s? The book was trying to be both separately instead of blending the two, and so you ended up with huge chunks of exposition (sometimes 30-50 pages (ish) at a time), and it didn’t really feel like the characters had to work for the mystery or the payoff.
What really made this hard to enjoy for me though, was the relentless violence and constant oversexualisation of women. It was all the time, in pretty much every chapter, and felt so unnecessary. I think the only woman whose breasts and general sexual allure weren’t discussed in detail was Daniel’s mother, and she was dead prior to the book starting. And the casual beatings, the sexism, the slut-shaming, and other much heavier violence sprinkled throughout...it really didn’t feel like the female characters in this were allowed to be people, and it completely alienated and exhausted me while I was reading. Perhaps to some extent the attitudes were ‘historically accurate’, but I think that parameter was hit and bulldozed through very early on.
It is a shame, because the writing style in this was beautiful, the descriptions of Barcelona were so evocative, and I loved the setting of the Cemetery or Forgotten books. These things we just overshadowed by everything else.
I also found the story quite confused - did it want to be Daniel’s story? Or did it want to be Julian Carax’s? The book was trying to be both separately instead of blending the two, and so you ended up with huge chunks of exposition (sometimes 30-50 pages (ish) at a time), and it didn’t really feel like the characters had to work for the mystery or the payoff.
What really made this hard to enjoy for me though, was the relentless violence and constant oversexualisation of women. It was all the time, in pretty much every chapter, and felt so unnecessary. I think the only woman whose breasts and general sexual allure weren’t discussed in detail was Daniel’s mother, and she was dead prior to the book starting. And the casual beatings, the sexism, the slut-shaming, and other much heavier violence sprinkled throughout...it really didn’t feel like the female characters in this were allowed to be people, and it completely alienated and exhausted me while I was reading. Perhaps to some extent the attitudes were ‘historically accurate’, but I think that parameter was hit and bulldozed through very early on.
It is a shame, because the writing style in this was beautiful, the descriptions of Barcelona were so evocative, and I loved the setting of the Cemetery or Forgotten books. These things we just overshadowed by everything else.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Incest, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Police brutality
Moderate: Body horror, Homophobia, Rape, and Sexual assault
Minor: Animal cruelty, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent