The Shadow of the Wind Review

The Shadow of the Wind

5 / 5

A simply stunning story.

The Shadow of the Wind is an irresistibly captivating story that entraps its readers within the first page. Intricately and beautifully told, Carlos Ruiz Zafron has fused wonder, mystery, murder and love together in this magical novel which causes an ache in the heart and soul of every reader.

Having finished reading this fantastic novel, which is phenomenally well written, I feel as if this review has to live up to the unreachably high standard set by Zafron’s literary masterpiece. Though I do not possess the same level of skill or imaginative abilities of Zafron, I will attempt to do this book justice through this well-meant review, which left me breathless through sheer wonderment.

Daniel, a ten-year-old boy from Barcelona, is brought by his father to a place shrouded in secrecy and mystery, a labyrinthine library called the ‘Cemetery of Forgotten Books’. Daniel is allowed to choose one book out of the hundreds of thousands of obscure, ancient and forgotten titles, and to be its protector forever. From the dusty bookshelves, he pulls out a book written by Jullian Carax called The Shadow of the Wind. Daniel treasures the book, and he attempts to find more out about Julian Carax and to find more of his books. Destiny and Fate, that have played a significant part in Daniel’s choosing of literature, lead Daniels’ literary curiosity into a mystery concerning the lives of several people all connected in some way to the life and death of Julian Carax.

The story evokes numerous emotions as the story progresses and the attachment the reader feels for certain characters becomes stronger as we begin to understand them more deeply. There is a fantastic blend of happiness, love, sadness and sorrow within each character, and when moments in the story come to pass you are holding your breath as we feverishly read the lines in the hope that the particular character finds whatever they are looking for.

As Daniel first ventured into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, his father tells him that every one of these books has a soul and has been or will be someone’s best friend and the book you end up choosing will be yours to protect. I share the same feeling with this book, it has become more than just a book to sit on a bookshelf, it has got a soul of its own and when I return to read it again, I will remember the first time I picked it up and became engrossed in its pages, the experience I had reading it will always be in my memory however long it is before my eyes fall onto these pages again.