BOOK REVIEW: SHADOW OF THE WIND BY CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN

Let me start with the things I didn't like, because, boy, have I got a lot to say:
1) Simply put, this book had weak, clichéd, and overall forgettable female characters (to be fair, though, almost all of this book's characters were pretty weak). The female characters in this book existed for one of two purposes: a) to be loved by a man or b) to be abused by a man. Take that purpose away and those female characters will amount to pretty much nothing. We have Clara, who showed so much promise as a smart, intriguing female character, but whose characters is completely destroyed by the end of the book. We have Beatriz, for whom I can think of no defining characteristic other than "love interest," if that even counts as a characteristic. We have Nuria, who was, like Clara, super interesting, but whose story also amounted to a disappointing ending, to say the least. All the other female characters had roles of little import in the story. I didn't feel like a single woman rose above her circumstances and displayed any agency or independence. They were all controlled by men, dominated by men, under the "spell" of men, etc. The women were there for the sake of being there. They had no personality, they had no willpower.

2) Alright, this is related to #1, but bear with me here. As if it wasn't enough to have weak, milquetoast female characters in this book, Zafón decided to inundate the reader with some lovely misogynistic comments. This was perhaps most concentrated in the character of Fermín, whom the book portrays favourably, and towards whom, I'm assuming, the reader is supposed to be sympathetic. What happens, then, when the ever so wonderful Fermín starts spewing out garbage like this:

"There was no way of stopping him pinching the nurse's bottom and reciting rhymed couplets in praise of her firm and shapely thighs."

(Keep in mind that this happens while he's already in a committed relationship with another woman, one with whom he's madly in love.)

or this

"Womankind is an indecipherable maze. If you give her time to think, you’re lost. Remember: warm heart, cold mind. The seducer’s code."

or this

"As Freud tells us, women want the opposite of what they think or say they want, which, when you consider it, is not so bad, because men, as is more than evident, respond, contrariwise, to the dictates of their genital and digestive organs."

You get the point. And I know this book is set in in the early to mid 1900s, a time during which misogyny was prevalent, blah blah blah. However, I can't in good conscience feel a single positive feeling towards a character whose lines mostly consisted of a barrage of offhand misogynistic comments. Also, none of the other male characters who were supposed to be viewed favourably by the reader (e.g. Daniel, his father, Miquel, etc.) were like Fermín, which leaves me wondering, why was it necessary to have such grating comments come from a character whom the reader is supposed to like? Beats me.

3) I didn't mind this as much as the previous two points, but I still felt the need to address it given that this book centers around a mystery. I found that instead of a gradual reveal, what we got was this concentrated info dump at the end that very conveniently answered all the questions raised by the book's mystery. It just seemed really heavy-handed for a book whose entirety focused on this gradual accumulation of information regarding the mystery.

4) A major case of instalove.

5) A villain that's as flat as paper. Boring and incredibly one-dimensional.

Phew. Okay. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let me move on to the positives (which will be underwhelming compared to the negatives):
1) The writing style was incredibly immersive and really lent itself to the rich setting of Barcelona.
2) For the most part, I enjoyed the mystery and how it unraveled throughout the book. I definitely did not see a couple of those plot twists coming.
3) Though this was a minor part of the book, I really loved Daniel's relationship with his father. The scenes with the two of them together really hit home.

That's about all I got for the positives.

Conclusion: I thought I would adore this book, given the overwhelming amount of positive reviews it's gotten, but apparently, I'm in the minority here. I just didn't like this book. In the end, the aspects that this book handled poorly (female representation) were handled really poorly and the aspects that it handled well weren't handled that well to win me over.