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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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The Last Kingdom, by Bernard Cornwell

5/5

Wyrd bið ful aræd

Honestly, one of the best books I’ve read recently. It goes straight into my “Favourite Historical Fiction Novels” category. Let’s dive into the review.

The Plot

Uhtred is the son of the Ealdorman of Bebbanburg, a fortress in Northumbria. As a nine-years-old, he is not interested in learning his letters, taught by Father Beocca. Instead, he wants to be a valiant warrior, and one day, he can finally accompany his father on the battlefield. His father’s and other Ealdormen’s armies want to take back Eoferwic, which had just been conquered by the Danes, and Uhtred should be there only as a spectator, on a hill far from the battle. However, he disobeys his father’s orders, he launches himself in an attack against a Dane, who laughs at him, disarms him, and kidnaps him. The attack to Eoferwic fails, Uhtred is orphaned and now his life is in the hands of Ragnar, an Earl and warlord among the Danes. Ragnar likes Uhtred and his courage (or foolishness), and decides to make him a Dane. And so Uhtred grows up among the Danes, he believes in their Gods, he becomes a warrior and Ragnar’s son. Treason, however, is awaiting. And it’s the treason of one of the fellow Danes, Kjartan, that has consequences that will force Uhtred to reconsider completely his loyalties and his role.

The Good

Everything. Ok I will be more specific.

First of all, it is historically accurate. Very accurate. So the ones in the book are not pop-culture Vikings, they are true historical Danes. And the Anglo-Saxons are accurate too. The author did a great job consulting different sources and documents.

The story is gripping and Uhtred is not depicted as the usual war hero that saves the day. He has to learn how to command people, he has to learn how to use his abilities to his benefit, and he has to understand that courage and foolishness are very different.

The battles are incredibly detailed, so much that in certain moments I felt like I was there, watching the action and hearing the battle cries.

The Bad

None, really.

My Opinion

I’d 100% recommend this book to people that have a soft spot for Vikings and the invasion of Britain, and to people who like stories with a lot of strategy, politics, and battles. I absolutely loved this book, and I already bought the second one in the series.

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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Crown of Midnight, Sarah J. Maas

3/5

I’m glad I did not give up this book series after the first one (Throne of Glass). This is much better! Still not perfect, but I noticed some improvements in style and plot. Let’s dig in!

Plot (as spoiler-free as possible)

Celaena is the King’s Champion, she is his personal assassin and has to eliminate every target that he deems might pose a threat to his reign. However, she cannot forget her hatred for the tyrant and all the people that are being oppressed, incarcerated and tortured for his evil purposes. Instead of killing the targets, Celaena warns them and gives them a chance to disappear, pretending to have carried out her task with the king.

While she struggles to keep this secret while also keeping her closest relationships safe, she tries to uncover the secrets buried in the glass castle related to Elena, the half-Fae queen of old, and magic.

One night, a gruesome murder happens, and it strikes really close to her heart, while she cannot do anything to prevent it. This makes the little certainties that she had, the little world that she had managed to build around herself, collapse. Celaena will have to finally decide who to trust, where her loyalties lie, and she will learn that uncovering the source of the mysterious events that have been taking place in the castle is a matter of life and death.

The Good

Finally, some decent fight scenes! They have improved a lot since the previous book, where everything was dismissed as “a blur”. Now Celaena looks more like an assassin. Also, the plot is getting more intricate, which is always good. At least not everything is super predictable.

I’m starting to like Celaena more as a character (although I still think she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed), and I have to say that now she started to gain more depth.

The Bad

Well, I think I have a problem with the writing style of the author, I still feel like the descriptions don’t add anything to the reading experience, and sometimes the dialogues sound either too orchestrated and fake, or too informal (so they don’t fit the setting of the book).

SPOILER AHEAD, CAREFUL

The biggest problem I found in the story is how possessive, jealous and generally a testosterone-fuelled gorilla Chaol is. It’s surprising that anyone, but especially a female author, can present his behaviour as normal or even romantic!

In a chapter he still doesn’t know if Celaena likes him or not, but he still fantasises about throwing her on the bed (or sofa, can’t remember) and taking her. Sounds a bit rapey. Then he starts being jealous and feels the urge to punch people in the face just for looking at her. He is also very controlling.

I think this is a completely wrong way of presenting a relationship, especially in a YA novel.

Final Remarks

Well, despite the flaws, I kept reading the book for its plot, which hooked me completely from the beginning. I am glad I did not abandon the idea, because it is still a refreshing read.

ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ

#crown of midnight #throne of glass #sarah j maas #book review #book nerd #young adult #fantasy #celaena #celaena sardothien #aelin galythinius #chaol #dorian havilliard

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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It is a very sad moment, one of the best contemporary authors just left us. Rest in peace.

I fell in love with The Shadow of the Wind, I am looking forward to reading his other books.

#books #culture #spain #the shadow of the wind #carlos ruiz zafón #death #contemporary #book #sad #the cemetery of forgotten books #la sombra del viento

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

“Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.”

4.5/5

It took me a long time to read this book, nearly two months, and I am really happy that I took all the time to enjoy this masterpiece. I love art, I can lose myself in a museum for hours, even remaining in the same room, admiring the same pictures. I find that, for many paintings, it takes seconds to see what is portrayed in them, but it takes hours and hours of contemplation to actually understand and appreciate them. This book is exactly like a one of those paintings: the story seems quite simple and straightforward, a person skim reading wouldn’t miss much in terms of actual plot; however, they would miss all the masterful descriptions, the deep and well-paced internal monologues, and all the little details.

The Plot

Theodore Decker is a 13-year-old boy whose life is capsized by a terrorist attack. Theo has just been suspended from school and he and his mother, on the way there, stop at the Metropolitan Museum to see an exhibition in which her favourite painting, The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, is displayed. Theo notices a beautiful girl with red hair, accompanied by an old man. Theo remains behind, while his mum goes to the souvenir shop, and that’s when the bomb explodes. He loses consciousness, when he wakes up the old man, before dying, urges him to take The Goldfinch and hide it. He escapes the aftermath and hides the painting. It is here that his personal odyssey starts: he is placed in foster care in a wealthy friend’s family, he meets the old man’s business partner, Hobie, and finds again Pippa, the beautiful red-haired girl, then he is retrieved like a parcel and brought to Las Vegas by his absent father. There he meets Boris, who will become simultaneously the best and the worst presence in his life. From the attack, Theo’s life is in constant movement, never settling, and he is constantly holding onto the memory of his mother, and the painting, which becomes an obsession and will draw him to the criminal world.

The Good

As I said, this book has to be enjoyed slowly. It is not an easy read at all, the words have been carefully chosen not only to convey a message, but to convey also a nuance of that same message. Exactly like a painting, it has many layers, many intricacies that can be noticed only upon close inspection.

The internal monologues of the main character (who is also the narrating voice) are perfectly written: they convey anxiety, calmness, uncertainty, fear so well that I couldn’t help but empathise with Theo and feel what he was feeling in those moments.

The characters are very well built, they too have layers, and I really liked how Theo, becoming an adult, remains often stuck in the mentality of a 13 or 14 year old. His obsessions for certain people, his irrational fears, his tendency to indulge in hedonism, all fit very well with his personal history and trauma.

The Bad

Well, as you might have noticed, I gave 4.5/5. Where did that 0.5 go? In the descriptions and the monologues. Yes, most of the time they are amazing, but there is a very very VERY fine line between “well constructed” and “contrived”. A couple of times I felt like that line had been crossed and what I was reading sounded way too unnatural. That’s the only criticism I have and it might well be entirely personal.

Final Judgement

If you have a month or two to spare, to just focus on this book, read it. For sure. I would’t describe it as “a page-turner”, but as a beautiful coming-of-age novel, that also teaches the reader to be patient and enjoy the little details.

Have you read it? What did you think of it? Did I instead convince you to read it? Let me know!

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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Hamilton Book Tag!

1. The Room Where It Happens: book world you would put yourself in

Absolutely Lord of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Possibly in Rivendell, where time doesn’t have much meaning.

2. The Schuyler Sisters: underrated female character

Susan Pevensie from C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, she is almost never mentioned as a very strong character. She had to take care of her brothers, she excels in archery and I am still salty about how the author treated her at the end of the saga. The reason is a spoiler so I’ll put it at the end of the post.

3. My Shot: a character that goes after what they want and doesn’t let anything stop them

William of Baskerville, from The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Such an amazing character. His helper, Adso, can also be in this category. He doesn’t let anything stand between him and the truth, even when he has to make difficult moral decisions.

4. You’ll Be Back: Sassiest Villain

This villain is in American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. He is the true villain of the story, and is just soooo sassy. And cool. I’m going to praise him a bit more at the bottom because it’s a massive spoiler.

5. The Reynolds Pamphlet: A Book With A Twist That You Didn’t See Coming

Uzumaki, by Junji Ito. Ok it is a manga, but still, manga is literature right? Especially Junji Ito. Uzumaki, like every single other work by Ito, has so many unexpected turns that often I could just stare at the last page of the chapter thinking “what? why? please someone explain”

6. Non-Stop: A Series You Marathoned

I Regni di Nashira, by Licia Troisi. I’m sorry for anyone who does not know Italian and is missing out on this author and this series especially. I was so obsessed that I ended up reading the first three books in one week, at the seaside, and then I had to wait for an entire year for the last one to come out. It was pure torture.

7. Satisfied: Favourite Book With Multiples POVs

Ok ok it’s not one book, but The Demon Cycle, by Peter V. Brett. The last post was on this series so I’ll stop here, otherwise I’ll start rambling again about how great it is.

8. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: A book or series you feel like will be remembered throughout history

All the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling. They are history, and I think they will be forever remembered among the books that shaped a generation (or more than one).

10. Stay Alive: A character you wish was still alive

KINDA SPOILER (I think we all read this book tho):

Snape. And Fred. Why J. K. Rowling? WHY?

11. Helpless: A relationship you were rooting for from the start

Laila and Tariq from A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. Great book, it will always be in my list of “books I think anyone should read in their life”

12. Ten Duel Commandments: Favourite fight scene

I’ll avoid saying “literally every fight scene in The Demon Cycle” (ok I said it), and I will say the Battle of the Five Armies, in The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. The first time I read this book, I was so surprised by this battle. The entire book before had some kind of “fairytale” aura, but this was perfectly staged.

13. What Comes Next: A series you wish had more books

A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin. Man, if you read this, can you please please FINISH THE SERIES?

14. Right Hand Man: Favourite bromance

Not a book bromance but Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are the best.

15. What’d I Miss: A book or series you were late to reading

Ehm... basically 90% of them? I usually add the series that everyone is reading to my list, but by the time I reach those books the hype is gone (⇀‸↼‶)

SPOILER:

Spoiler 1: Yes, Susan Pevensie. SHE DOESN’T GO TO NARNIA BECAUSE SHE LIKES LIPSTICK? Knowing how religious the author was, I wonder if it is a metaphor to say “you’ll not find salvation if you are fivolous”. It becomes even worse if lipstick = sex, which wouldn’t surprise me.

Spoiler 2: Mr Wednesday/Odin is my favourite character of the book, without him I would have rated it really badly. Somehow this one villain makes it really good, even for me (I’m not particularly fond of urban fantasy lol)

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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The Demon Cycle, Peter V Brett

Good and evil are inseparable and often indistinguishable.

How can I even start to express my love for this saga? It’s just... wow. It’s my favourite saga, after Lord of the Rings. So let’s say it’s my favourite modern fantasy saga. I got so immersed in the books that I spent six very sleep-deprived months and now every time I am asked for some fantasy reading advice I can only scream “THE DEMON CYCLE OMG YES READ IT”.

I stumbled across The Warded Man in the summer of 2018. I was in Germany for an internship, I was bored and a bit homesick, so of course I went to the massive bookstore in the town basically every other day to cheer myself up. One day, I was in the English fantasy section and this book caught my eye. I looked at it, read the plot at the back and I thought “well why not?”. That night I started reading it and I only stopped when I fell asleep involuntarily (also missing the alarm the next morning).

I want to make the review as spoiler-free as possible, because everyone who wants to read this saga deserves the full experience that I had.

First of all, The Demon Cycle is made of five books (The Warded Man, The Desert Spear, The Daylight War, The Skull Throne, The Core) all of which follow different characters, whose lives and paths cross, diverge and meet again at different points in time. The lore is very rich and it differs from other fantasy books so much that I cannot really categorise it. There are no elves, no dragons, no dwarves in these books: the only living creatures in the world are humans, animals and demons.

Demons are very complicated creatures, also known as Corelings, they spawn in the overworld only at night, and they are harmed by the sunlight. There are different types of demons, most of them are simple and mindless drones, whose only purpose is to kill humans. They are weapons in the hands of Mind Demons, or Demon Princes, who are deceptive, weak in the body but immensely powerful in the mind. Somewhere there is a place where all the demons are born, a hive, and in the hive there must be a Queen, the most powerful of all. Humanity is a prey, people are eaten every night by the demons and they are very close to extinction. The only way of protecting themselves is with the use of some wards (symbols) which, written on the ground in a circle, respecting some rules, create a shield that cannot be penetrated by demons. The demons, however, are clever enough to find little imperfections in the net and destroy it. Arlen Bales, after a very difficult childhood, finds himself working as a messenger, visiting exotic places in the middle of the desert, where the Krasian people live. They do not hide themselves behind wards, they fight the demons with (very ineffective) weapons and their bare hands, every night. Arlen, in those remote lands, finds a secret that can change the fate of humanity, but this secret also causes a struggle for power among humans. Ok I’ll stop, because anything more will be a massive spoiler.

One of the many aspects I loved about these books is the way magic and the wards are treated. In many fantasy books I’ve read, magic is just there, there’s stuff to learn but nothing to discover, it just happens. No explanations. In these books, instead, it is a science. It has its logic, its rules. People make experiments and there is always a tradeoff (a sort of First Law of Thermodynamics).

I loved some characters and I hated to the Core (lol) others, which is the best experience for me. I found that all the characters are neither likeable nor dislikable per se, they are all positioned in a grey area that leaves space to personal preferences. They all have their unique characteristics, meaning that there is no “absolute good” or “horrendously evil” among the humans. Some are nasty, some are nicer, all have their flaws and their ideas.

Let’s talk politics: awesome. Due to the fact that there aren’t multiple races and societies to consider, the author could focus only on human politics, and he did it magnificently. There is also quite a lot of Demon politics, unexpectedly.

If I keep writing about everything that I liked in these books, I will go on forever. I think it’s time to wrap it up and say: get these books if you’re in search of an incredibly compelling read but be ready to go on an emotional rollercoaster.

To anyone out there, let me know what you think about these books, if you liked them too, if you didn’t know about them... anything!

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

#the demon cycle #peter v brett #demons #arlen #leesha #the warded man #the painted man #the desert spear #rojer #ahmann #renna #inevera #the daylight war #the skull throne #the core

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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April reading list + lockdown boredom

So, we’re locked up. Not all of us, but a fair share of the western world is. Being the shy and introverted person that I am, I have already mastered the art of staying at home for prolonged periods of time, only going out when the pantry is so empty that there’s an echo inside. However, the situation is stressful and we all need to find as many things as possible to take our minds off of it.

BUT HA! Now you, yes, you, people who always say “mmh I don’t have time to read”, and you, who have had that one book that you’ve always wanted to read but never got around to doing it, you don’t have excuses! Finally our to-read list can get a bit shorter. Or keep growing but with books also getting crossed from it, your choice. So, without further ado, I’m going to write my personal April/lockdown reading list.

April+ reading list:

Finish LOTR: The Two Towers (for the fifth time in the last ten years), JRR Tolkien

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt (it was on my TBR list forever, then I found it in a thrift store just before the lockdown, so I might as well cancel it from the list)

Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb (compulsive book buying...)

The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon

The Magician’s Guild, Trudi Canavan

The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre (I have been postponing this for a while, I need to be in a very existentialist mood to be able to enjoy it fully, but I think I’m in the right place in my life at the moment)

Not sure if I will read them in this order, or if I will swap some of them. Of course, I will write reviews! Also, I probably won’t finish all of them by April but hope is the last to die...

PS: I think I feel a bit like the unknown villagers in Animal Crossing that throw their messages in the ocean. I throw my reviews/posts in the tumblr ocean hoping that someone might see them and smile a bit. We all need to smile, especially now.

#april #lockdown #boredom #to read #books #tbr #tbrbooks #ocean #tumblr #booklr #reading list #chill #smile

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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Readers have been practicing social distancing forever

Real talk. 🤗

#social distancing #reading #introvert #introverted #i'm ignoring you

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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Throne of Glass - Sarah J. Maas

“We all bear scars, [...] mine just happen to be more visible than most.”

2/5? Honestly, some parts were a 3 and some a 0... Also: spoilers ahead, the opinions I express are purely personal and if you like the book that’s cool too, yadda yadda yadda.

I heard of Throne of Glass as the first instalment of an amazing YA series, and a friend of mine recommended it to me. I was at Comic Con, saw it, read the back cover and thought “well why not?”. The plot sounded awesome: an enslaved girl who’s also the most famous assassin of the known world? check; a to-the-death competition to gain freedom? check; a complex set of magic/laws/creatures? check. Unfortunately, NONE OF IT WAS IN THE BOOK.

Setting

The story is set in Erilea, this not-so-well-defined continent. All we know is that the King of Adarlan, a “really bad” king, is conquering all the territories, apart from Eyllwe (not sure why he wants them as allies), and is outlawing magic. To be fair, the entire story takes place in Endovier and its salt mines, then the Glass Castle in Rifthold (Adarlan), and nowhere else so the only info we have about the other places come from either a couple of characters, or the (perfectly useless) map at the beginning. Also, the names are an obvious mixture of LOTR and The Elder Scrolls.

Plot

If you’ve read the book skip to the next part, I’m not going to say anything new.

I’m going to keep it short, especially because there is no plot whatsoever in 3/4 of the book. Celaena Sardothien is the most famous assassin of Erilea and has been imprisoned for about a year in Endovier. All of a sudden, the Crown Prince of Adarlan (Dorian Havillard) gives her the chance to fight as his proposed Champion-wannabe in a to-the-death tournament. If she wins, she’ll be the Champion of Adarlan and, after serving for four years, she’ll be free. She is escorted to Rifthold by Dorian, the Captain of the Guard, Chaol Westfall, and a bunch of people.

Celaena accepts (not that she had a choice). The competition, it turns out, is not really to-the-death especially because all of the tests before the final trial look like middle-school PE lessons, with a touch of fantasy. Of course, since every YA needs that, there is the love triangle developing (Celaena-Dorian-Chaol). While she is training and attending the tests, she stays in the castle, reads a lot, is sent a bazillion precious dresses and meets a princess from Eyllwe, Nehemia, who we understand that will do something important at the end but for the rest she’s a plant.

The Champions start being killed in a terrible way (dismembered/eaten) and of course Celaena wants to find the culprit. She finds a passageway conveniently placed in her room (?), which leads to corridors and doors. Long story short, she is contacted in her sleep or in a sort of weird dream by the first Queen of Adarlan, Elena, who tells her that the clock tower of the castle is a portal to other dimensions, and someone wants to open it to summon evil. No real reason behind it. Celaena also gets this “magical” necklace from Elena. No one is suspicious.

Celaena continues her investigations, finds out that Cain, the obviously bad and suspicious Champion, has been summoning the ridderak (the creature that killed the Champions). She destroys the ridderak, then the story continues, she gets to the final stage of the tournament (in which, lo and behold, the Champions fighting cannot kill each other but just submit the other competitors). She has a final fight with Cain, her drink is spiked, she hallucinates, she gets in a weird dimension, Cain summons evil creatures, Nehemia does some hocus-pocus and summons Elena in Celaena’s dream, all the creatures are pushed back to their dimension and Celaena wins.

That’s it. Action packed eh? 400 pages in four paragraphs.

My opinion

Well done, you’re in the part where I express my salt opinions.

First of all: the characters are all incredibly dumb and naïve. Especially Celaena. She is not the stereotypical YA main character, she is worse. Emotionally unstable, awfully stupid, with the wisdom of a 6-year old kid. I expected a deadly assassin (have I already said that “she’s the most famous assassin of all Erilea”?) and got a pampered princess.

The writing style is awful. I am really surprised that someone can actually write this description and still be published: “in short, Celaena Sardothien was blessed with a handful of attractive features that compensated for the majority of average ones [...]”. The descriptions are all very plain or too long, and also, in some parts, reminded me of the descriptions of clothes in My Immortal. Yes, that bad. And what about the fight scenes? The main character is an assassin (the most famous assassin in Erilea, pt. 372) and all the action scenes are... bland. She either cannot recollect what happened, or some superior force helps her, or they are just not described. I’m sorry Sarah J Maas, but if you cannot write a good action scene, stick to love stories!

My expectations were clearly not met. What is the point in saying that the tournament is to-the-death and then making people just wrestle? Too violent? What about the gutted people and the very vivid descriptions of the blood spattered everywhere? Also I hoped for a main character that is strong, witty, maybe slightly damaged. I got a pampered princess who likes good dresses and thinks about her appearance at least fifteen times a day. After the terrible worldbuilding, I thought that, at least, there would be a fully developed magic/fantasy lore. Nope, magic is mentioned but not described, then there is other creatures called Fae that are utterly useless and appear once never to be seen again, no detailed religion, no detailed politics. Just love triangle and some pseudo-fights.

The plot holes are devastating, and are so deep that the Mariana Trench is a puddle in comparison. I’ll just say this: why did they take away all the knives but not the forks or the cue sticks? Why is she treated like a princess but not allowed at parties/balls?

Final remarks

Ok so, it’s not the worst book I have ever read. I enjoyed some parts, they were mildly entertaining. I didn’t really like it, but I didn’t 100% dislike it, either... It’s certainly among the lowest rated books though. It is an easy read, I finished it in about a week (as a side book, not the main book I was reading). Perfect for turning off your brain, maybe on holiday. I refuse to support the marketing of this book as “feminist YA novel”, because the idea of Celaena as a feminist icon makes me shiver. Let’s say that the idea behind it was good and the execution was incredibly poor. There were incredibly unnecessary parts, like the love triangle. I will probably read the other ones in the series, but just because I am a self-destructive reader who enjoys a good dose of cringeworthy trash (or trashy cringe) every now and then.

#throne of glass #sarah j maas #celaena #young adult #why #book #book review #fantasy #novel #novella #why did i read this #cringe #not good not bad

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theshybooknerd · 4 years

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The Shadow of the Wind ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón

“There are worse prisons than words”

4.75/5

It’s difficult for me to find a book that ends up in my Pantheon of Fave Books, but this one surely earned its place there. I know, I know, it took me a long time to start this book. It’s been on my TBR list for the past seven years. Somehow, I never felt that the moment was right. Sometimes I wanted something light to read, sometimes I would tackle a literary monster and forget about the books that lie in the middle, the ones that are deep but at the same time refreshing.

The Shadow of the Wind is the story of Daniel Sempere, a young man whose destiny is tied to a book and its mysterious author, Julián Carax. Around the system made of Daniel-book-Carax revolve a universe of unique characters: the funny and witty Fermín Romero de Torres, the beautiful Bea, the scary Inspector Fumero, the clever and deceptive Nuria and many more. All of these characters are part of a mystery concerning Julián Carax: who is destroying all his books? why? is Carax still alive? I will not give too many details on the plot now, knowing just a little too much would completely ruin the reading experience.

The story is narrated in first person in a never-boring style, the descriptions are very vivid and the plot is neither too action-packed, nor static. There are of course, parts that are more introspective where Daniel expresses his thoughts or thinks about the mystery, but the author wrote them in a way that made me feel like I was thinking, not Daniel.

I will surely read the other books in the series (The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven), which, btw, can be read in any order since they are not directly connected to each other.

Now, spoilers ahead so click below only if you have read the book or don’t care about knowing a bit of the plot!

Just wow. What a book. The part where Daniel reads Nuria’s manuscript, after her death, made me want to stay up until 4am to know more! Also, it’s not only a story within a story, but a book within a book. A bit unnecessary the whole incest part, since it does not lead to anything but hey, further details.

The attention to details is astounding in certain parts of the book. Shall we talk about the Montblanc Meisterstück that lies forgotten in a drawer for a very long time, until it comes back as part of the story, as if it were a character itself? Yes, the one in the picture is my Montblanc, I’ve always liked them, maybe that’s why I remember this detail...

The only thing that I didn’t like 100% is the characterisation of Juliàn Carax and Fumero.

Juliàn is clearly a tormented soul, that’s obvious. I understood who Lain Coubert was about 1/4 into the book, which is still ok, we’re not talking about a proper thriller. However, I felt that his motivations were a bit weak. Why cancel himself? I thought that maybe he was doing that for the shame of having an affair with his sister, and also the guilt of indirectly causing her death. However, he never knew that they were related. So, was he doing it just for the guilt? An extreme act of self-destruction?

Fumero’s motivation is just... well, he’s completely nuts.

This said, I did not focus too much on these two very minor flaws so I still give a solid 4.75/5 to everything!

#the shadow of the wind #books #book review #book nerd #carlos ruiz zafon #zafon #suspence #mystery #chill #forgottenbooks #montblanc #words #fave #page turner

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