The Shadow of the Wind

Fantasy is my favorite genre. The biggest reason for my love of it is because fantasy is able to instill a sense of wonderment and intrigue in me. There are few reading experiences greater than finding a great fantasy book that makes you feel like you’re totally transported into another world that is rich with ideas and concepts to explore. When I have an experience like this, I swear I feel a physical sensation in my heart that is euphoric.

For the first 300 pages, The Shadow of the Wind gave me that same feeling. I was entranced by the way Zafón laid out the pieces of Julian Carax’s life and just wanted to know more. Each plot twist and reveal felt satisfying and I just couldn’t put the book down. Few non-fantasy books have ever made me feel the way The Shadow of the Wind did for the first ⅔ of its page count, and for that I am extremely grateful. I can confidently say that no book I’ve read in 2024 has made me feel that way.

And yet, for some reason, that feeling went away during the final third of the book. At a certain point I just wanted it to end. I genuinely don’t know why I stopped liking the book. There aren’t many differences between the first two thirds and the last third, but it felt like the magic had run out. There are some books that I like to call ‘vibe reads’. ‘Vibe reads’ are really hard to review because the impact they leave on the reader is hard to explain in words. Some ‘vibe reads’ are really enjoyable and yet have objectively poor qualities. And there are some ‘vibe reads’ that are the opposite, where despite everything being objectively strong there’s just something off about them. The Shadow of the Wind is the ultimate ‘vibe read’. When it’s good, the vibes are just fantastic and yet something just changes and makes it a slog to get through.

In terms of literary qualities, I think the biggest issues the book has are with its main character and tendency to exposition-dump. Daniel is the main character of this book and yet I would say without hesitation that he’s the least interesting. The book mostly gets away with having a fairly boring protagonist by having a ton of supporting characters to take the attention off of him. For the first parts of the book Daniel is more of a vessel that allows these other characters to be explored as opposed to a character in his own right. The book also has a way of making the plot so intriguing and expansive that there’s no need to focus on Daniel himself. Unfortunately, the plot is a bit too expansive, leading to a ton of exposition-dumping in the final parts. This book is at its strongest when Daniel acts as a detective in search of the truth of Julian Carax, meeting various interesting characters along the way. He finds out each bit of information slowly, allowing the plot to progress at an even pace. But the last parts of the book just give Daniel all of the information and focus a lot on who he is as a person. These changes are subtle but they really tank the vibes of the book and leave me incredibly unsatisfied.

This book still has a ton of strong qualities. I think the overall mystery of what happened to Julian Carax is really interesting. And the supporting characters (including Julian) are just fantastic. I don’t think there’s a single supporting character who I would say is poorly-written or adds nothing to the plot. I can confidently say that this cast of supporting characters is among the best in any novel I’ve ever read. Overall I can’t say I hate this book simply because those qualities are so strong. Its highs are extremely high, but its lows are low enough that I leave the book feeling more frustrated than anything.