Simone and Her Books

I was recommended this book by another influencer who said if I liked The Book of Doors, then I would like The Shadow of the Wind. While the two books are vastly different from each other, I left reading The Shadow of the Wind with a sense of awe and adoration for the characters and the world Carlos Ruiz Zafon created.

Here’s more about The Shadow of the Wind

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals from its war wounds, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julian Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets–an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

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My thoughts

The story follows Daniel, a young bookseller’s son who has the privilege of visiting The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. There, he finds a copy of The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. He’s so enamored by the book and by the author’s words that he decides to find out more about the author. The story gets a little more interesting when a mysterious stranger comes to visit Daniel asking to buy a copy of the book in order to burn it. From then begins a journey to finding Julian Carax and the tumultuous life of love, deceit, and death that followed him around.

This definitely felt more like a character-driven story than a plot-driven one. Most of the stories about Julian Carax are told second-hand through the characters. They’re little stories within the bigger story and as you uncover the truth alongside Daniel, they point to the life Julian Carax lived up to the moment Daniel picked up his book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. If I’m being honest, this method of writing the story felt detached. I would have much preferred the stories being shown, fleshed out with characters in how they acted and what they said in the moment, so reading the stories from someone else’s POV didn’t work for me.

That being said, the other parts of the story really interconnect in this interesting way that brings life to what feels like fiction and turns real life into the story. I loved how Daniel and Julian’s life somehow felt intertwined with each other. It’s an interesting play with the story and intrigued me to keep reading since you see these connections begin to take place. It wasn’t puzzling (and I realized who the mysterious man who burned books was very early on), but more about the journey than the destination.

It was truly a lovely read with tons of nods to the bookish and writerly life that any reader would absolutely love. I think I highlighted some incredible quotes about books and writing that just resonated so much with what I believe about reading. It’s definitely a book lover’s book and I highly recommend.