#The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Lucia Graves (Translator)

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midnight inletBOT
midnight inletBOT
meager birch
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Ngl my ex (the one I like) LOVES this book so I’m interested to see why

midnight inletBOT
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@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@lilac plaza,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@real kayak,@midnight zodiac,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@abstract cairn,@willow ridge

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Hi, hi, everyone! 3/3 of my Buddy Reads starting today :D
The Shadow Of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón begins today and will end in 2 months time - due to the high amount of BRs on right now, if we need to extend, we can work that out <3

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.

  1. Do you enjoy books that have a meta-narrative?
  2. Have you engaged with this title before?
midnight inletBOT
meager birch
proven belfry
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hello all ive read this but still stay here for discussion

inner kelp
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  1. i’m not sure what meta-narrative is but i just looked it up and yes
  2. nope. i am very excited
zenith dome
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I have already found an English copy in the local library. The wording seems readable to me. So I plan to read it on November 😄

round plinth
round plinth
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Finished up to Chapter 4. I really like this so far! The descriptions are intricate and playful, and it's a sort of bookish Borgesian mystery that I love. I've recently done some reading about the Spanish Civil War so I'm familiar with the context in a way that I wouldn't have been a few months ago, which is always satisfying. I'm looking forward to getting to know more about these characters, and about ||who is burning Carax's books and why.||

round plinth
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Finished chapter 12. There are some really colorful characters in this book. I'm especially a fan of Tomás and Fermín. I hope that ||we get a female character with as much depth and humor, because so far the female characters are treated kind of antagonistically, or at least they are held at a distance, other than the idealized dead mother. And maybe that makes sense, given the character is 16 at this point and had a bad experience resulting from his desire for Clara, but I think the book would be even richer if we got a female character or two who were fully realized. ||

round plinth
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Finished up to chapter 16. I'm really enjoying this, though there are lots of moving parts and I'm having a bit of a hard time keeping track of everything because im still fairly sick. We have ||Carax, the creepy faceless guy burning all his book, Isaac's daughter Nuria who had an affair with Julian, and Penelope who was also in love with him before he left for Paris. And then in Daniel's timeline we have him, his father, Fermin, Tomas, Bea, Clara, her uncle and the music instructor, and now the inspector who seems to be after Fermin||

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It seems a lot to tie up so we'll see how it goes! I love the gothic tone of the book and the gradual unfolding of the mystery, but there is also a bit of a tone of ||misogyny that I don't love. Women are definitely treated as some unknowable other, they're very sexualized and not really treated like fully realized people||

round plinth
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Chapter 20: Daniel ||has an interaction with a woman without it turning weirdly sexual challenge, failed||

round plinth
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Chapter 23: ok but actually, I would love it if we could go five pages without ||sexualizing a female character. It's really taking the fun out of the book and its mystery for me, and I'm finding it kind of gross and off-putting||

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I am icked

round plinth
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ok I'm back from the brink of death /j

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so I'm 45% of the way through this book and I need to make a decision, either I dnf, or I try not to dwell on the ||sexism|| and I find things to enjoy about the book to get something out of the reading. Since I don't often dnf, I think I will go with the latter

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so, something I like about this book is how present the city of Barcelona is, how well it's described and how atmospheric it is, I feel like the city is almost a character in its own right and that's very cool

round plinth
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Hmmm this book is actually putting me in a slump and making me not want to read so I think I'm going to put it down for now and maybe come back to it

round plinth
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Jk I picked it back up again because I'm stubborn. I think the ||issue is that, blatant and aggressive sexism aside, the book is quite good. The prose is good, there is a real sense of moodiness and atmosphere, the unfolding of the mystery is satisfying and keeping me engaged. But the female characters are flat and lifeless, Daniel has weird and unearned sexual tension with every woman he meets, and generally the book treats women with disdain or at least dismissal. I'm honestly very torn.||

round plinth
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Got to chapter 36 tonight. The ||Aldaya mansion is so creepy and I love it. I'm starting to think that the faceless man is Jorge Aldaya, and that Penelope got pregnant from her affair with Julian and then perhaps died in childbirth, because isn't that what women do||

round plinth
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I managed to power through and finish this today. I think it is ||wonderfully atmospheric, and I enjoyed the unraveling of the mystery, and I think the last quarter of the book or so was my favorite, maybe because a good chunk of it is actually told from Nuria's POV. But I stand by my criticisms of sexism that made large parts of this book very off-putting and not very fun to read. I have other thoughts and some criticisms but I feel like I've ranted into the void enough so I will put this aside for now.||

inner kelp
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boo

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i started this today and have reached chapter 5 of days of ashes 1945 - 1949

||i‘m not very aware of the historical / political context of what‘s happening so I‘m kind of blind in that area.|| also confession I started this while walking on the threadmill so I was just trying not to die the whole time. ||i love the mystery around carax and why did that man go around burning his books? politics or personal? and clara‘s father?! I also really love clara btw sobAUGH||

i can‘t wait to read more of this

inner kelp
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i want to use this book to complete the protagonist is around your age prompt if it‘s possible blobAww

round plinth
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Um I believe he's like 17? Maybe 16 or 17?

inner kelp
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thank you!!

round plinth
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No worries!

inner kelp
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up to chapter 10 ||a lot of things have happened peepoPray i was heartbroken on daniel‘s behalf when he saw clara and that musician. the mystery around carax deepens, i used to think it was a political reason, why his books were burned, but i‘m starting to think it‘s personal. i hope we meet nuria in the next chapters, i want to see carax through her point of view. and i‘m hoping that what happened to teresita and isaac never happens to me.||

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re the love isaac spoke about ||i really love and hate that this type of pent-up love and heartbreak can exist. on one hand i think it‘s beautiful that somebody can love somebody else so deeply and for such a long time (nuria and carax, for example, like nuria is now married but her dad seems to think she still thinks of carax) but at the same time i just hate it because why are there no happy endings pepeSeriously ||

inner kelp
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chapter 11 : ||fermin is so cute||. i‘m actually going to read on the spanish civil war for a bit before continuing with the book, i think i‘m missing out on a lot of the political context. ||i need to know who tortured my baby fermin, and what side he played on||

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okay i tried to read up on it but didn‘t understand anything so i will google as i go

inner kelp
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chapter 14 : ||ok i need bea and daniel together lolz|| WAAAAAAAAAAAAIT. ||antony fortuny. fuck you||

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ok i need to stop shipping daniel with girls

inner kelp
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chapter 18 : ||i have shed a tear for don federico. blobOohCry poor man.||
chapter 20 : ||lol i have been delusional all this time and thought that julian carax is still alive but yeah no this hurts|| ok. this is my favourite chapter. i got to know a lot about julian and i love him. ||so now i‘m back to the book burnings are personal theory.||

inner kelp
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chapter 21 : okay i need ||bea and daniel together|| bbhk_cry ||someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you‘ve already stopped loving that person forever. oh man||
chapter 22 : ||ok i‘ve excused comparing women to steak but let‘s not ever do that again fermin||
chapter 23 : ||lol this is kind of funny minus the fact that bea is getting so much shit for staying out late||,
chapter 24 : ||oh i‘m starting to see the similarities of like julian and penelope + bea and daniel, best friend‘s sister bbhk_cry || , ||what is it with fermin and comparing women and love to food!!||, ||oh so the theory now is that julian is burning his own books under a new identity.. hm. interesting.|| WAIT WHAT

inner kelp
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chapter 25 : ||oh okay i thought daniel was really julian‘s son lol, i think they‘re just pretending. also this made me cackle:

“the headmaster thought he was possessed by the devil because he recited marx in german during mass.”

“a clear sign of possession,” fermin agreed.||

chapter 28 : ||i was not expecting this death lol,, and also, bea and daniel. sigh.||

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chapter 34 : ||i hate that bea jumped. poor girl. and also who the hell is moving children’s coffins||

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chapter 35 : ||i don‘t appreciate the last sentence of this chapter||

inner kelp
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||like, i sort of ship bea and dan, but i also have an issue with how he just keeps on thinking about her sexually, and very rarely romantically, or like, as herself.||

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chapter 36 : ||i‘m sad. but yeah i expected this about fermin.||

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i have finished and was unable to give my thoughts for chapters 37 - 44 because so much was happening and i was engrossed. i dunno what to think

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it‘s really good though, i really liked this minus the ||sexism||. i feel like the story tied beautifully at the end, the mystery made sense and was resolved in a heartbreaking way, and i genuinely enjoyed my time reading. ||i want to just rescue penelope. how do you ignore the cries of your own daughter. and for the whole semi-incest thing.. i blame the parents of both julian and penelope equally, because why wouldn‘t you just let them know..|| i really enjoyed this, really really did. i genuinely felt like i was in barcelona, after the civil war, and to be honest, ||felt the pain of what it must have been like to be a woman during that time.|| and i guess one of the theories came to fruitition, ||that julian was burning his own books.||

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i looked it up and ||daniel is in his early 20s towards the ending of the book|| so i‘m going to use this for the age prompt

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by the university of michigan

SPOILER_Screenshot_2024-10-16_at_4.37.23_PM.png
midnight inletBOT
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@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@real kayak,@midnight zodiac,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@willow ridge,@shell rune

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HOLY MOLY I KNEW I WAS FORGETTING SOMETHING- I'm assuming we need an extension for this?!

midnight inletBOT
meager birch
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I would appreciate one, but if it’s not possible that’s fine too

jovial rampart
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I definitely want to read this but I just lost track because of how nuts October was

viscid basin
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I just moved so I was a mess.

zenith dome
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I want to read it but I have other books I need to finish first. So I will postpone the reading to next year. Wish you all have good reading times peepoPray

midnight inletBOT
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Ongoing BuddyRead
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Lucia Graves (Translator)
Description

Just to further fill out the already bulging TBR for everyone in Fall :D
I first found out about this while I was gathering the choices for the BOTM - while it didn't win, that doesn't mean we can't BR it!

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.

Whether you want to use this to mark Spain off of your Around The World challenge or if you're just like me and want to read on principle that this sounds RAD - join up!

Start Date

<t:1725926400:D>

End Date

<t:1735603200:D>

Thread(s)

#1279353204475166720

Requested By

@jovial rampart

Leader(s)

@jovial rampart(0)

Interested (12)

@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@real kayak,@midnight zodiac,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@willow ridge,@shell rune

Event ID: 66ccb55683c7672177473299
proven belfry
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BR Extended!
BR Duration: <t:1725926400:D> - <t:1735603200:D>

proven belfry
zenith dome
zenith dome
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chapter 9: I am shocked by what Daniel saw. ||Is this really necessary? To shatter a boy's fantasy like this? || And, as I just finished Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick, I think I don't like books containing || sex scenes unless it's necessary like how it works in Margret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. ||

zenith dome
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it's interesting that author put real life literature references into the novel.

zenith dome
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(Place holder) read chapter 10 to chapter 13 today. Stopped at city of shadow, 1954. the end of ch 13 is intriguing for it reveals a fact and feed the readers more puzzles.

It's a nice book for me to read just few paragraphs when I have some not so busy moments at work.

jovial rampart
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cowboyPeepowave I'll be reading this this week too!

midnight inletBOT
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@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@midnight zodiac,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@willow ridge,@shell rune,@real kayak

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Hi! Long time no see! So we're actually coming close to the end of this BR, we have 10 days until the end!
If anyone needs an extension, I'm happy to give it if only because I've not been showing a lot of love to this read (this time of the year amiright? ( • ᴖ • ｡)
Happy reading guys! I'm gonna be getting to this one myself in the next few days hopefully!

midnight inletBOT
meager birch
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I would appreciate an extension but if one doesn’t materialize, that’s fine

stone sand
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I would too, thank you!! I'll try to start the book this week but an extension would take some pressure off

jovial rampart
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How long would we need, like 3 weeks? Nowoted

stone sand
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Sounds good!

zenith dome
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3 weeks is good blobThanks

midnight inletBOT
#
Ongoing BuddyRead
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Lucia Graves (Translator)
Description

Just to further fill out the already bulging TBR for everyone in Fall :D
I first found out about this while I was gathering the choices for the BOTM - while it didn't win, that doesn't mean we can't BR it!

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.

Whether you want to use this to mark Spain off of your Around The World challenge or if you're just like me and want to read on principle that this sounds RAD - join up!

Start Date

<t:1725926400:D>

End Date

<t:1737504000:D>

Thread(s)

#1279353204475166720

Requested By

@jovial rampart

Leader(s)

@jovial rampart(0)

Interested (12)

@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@midnight zodiac,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@willow ridge,@shell rune,@real kayak

Event ID: 66ccb55683c7672177473299
lilac plaza
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BR extended!
<t:1725926400:D> - <t:1737507600:D>

lilac plaza
meager birch
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I’m gonna go ahead and start this one so I don’t forget about it.

Cemetery of Forgotten Books to Days of Ashes Chp 3:
||Fascinating that it appears to be the story of getting the fictional book, not the book itself, and that so little is known about Carax’s work.
It also feels like the tutor could’ve tried to find Carax instead of going to bookstores to find his work.
Also, it seems like Clara is going to be a cursed schoolboy crush, like in Carax book.||

meager birch
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Also, one of my exes LOVES this book so he was hyped when I said I was starting it

zenith dome
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ch 16: ||The police/inspector purge the communists and so called thieves. || things/historical backgrounds are getting interesting.
I hope || Daniel go and warn the watchmaker. why didn't he blobFacePalm ||

meager birch
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Up to Chp 15-
||I’m only like 20% through but the lechery has already gotten old.

I’m enjoying that it’s a relatively slow-burn action-wise, and im loving the Scooby Doo-esque behavior re:Fortuny apartment.||

stone sand
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Just started, on Cemetery of Forgotten Books and immediately I'm swept into the idea of ||this vast mysterious place where all books that have ever been written are kept and safeguarded. And I was thinking to myself that if I had to choose one book to be the guardian of, which book would it be? I haven't read very many obscure books that would need my safekeeping, but there are a couple of less known, underrated books I love that I would dearly love to keep in publication. ||

zenith dome
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ch 20: || why the protagonist has to found sexual attraction in every female character he meet/knew? ||
Beside this, Zafon has this interesting point of view about authors and their lit works.

round plinth
zenith dome
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I am sorry...I might give this novel a hiatus. Because I don't feel relatable to the protagonist nor interested in || finding out what happened to the author of The Shadow of the wind... ||

jovial rampart
zenith dome
bitter graniteBOT
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Thank you Vaude! I might
pick it up again once I
have the right mindset.

- Clock
meager birch
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(I’d put this one on pause to start something else but I’m picking it up again)
I just realized one of the reviewers on the back compared this to an author I actively dislike, so no wonder I’m uneasy

round plinth
meager birch
meager birch
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chp 21- ||I thought it was a real dumb move to bring Bea to the cemetary but WOW a Thomas Hardy mention (Tess) while I'm currently re-reading Far From the Madding Crowd||

viscid basin
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I just looked at my br calander and I hadnt seen the update in time and I almost paniced that I had to read this today when it also holiday

meager birch
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Somewhere around the 40+/-3% mark- ||The sheer interconnected-ness of the characters continually catches me off guard, most notably Fumero’s school connection to Carax. I’m waiting for a reveal like “Fermin has been Carax the whole time” or something just to really tie it all together||

jovial rampart
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I started this yesterday okayu_dance

jovial rampart
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THIS JUST LIKE THE GOLDFINCH FR
Okay no but seriously I'm really loving this omg

stone sand
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Okay, I started again last night, for real this time, I'm up to Ch 10. ||It feels so meta, I'm listening on audio and they tell stories within stories and sometimes if I miss it I don't know which story I'm in 😅 The "devil" character in Carax's Shadow of the Wind apparently being a real person in Zafon's Shadow of the Wind and having the same name initially made me confused because I thought it was the real person's name and Carax used his real name for his character in the book and I feel like that's so cruel, but then later I realized that it could be that the real person took the name of the character for himself - but why would anyone do that? Especially if he hated Carax's books enough to want to burn them. I feel it's more likely that it's his real name and Carax used the real name for the character but who knows. So fucking meta! I should say this is a reread for me, but I don't remember a single thing anyway so Idk if the question is answered later ||

||I also feel for Daniel being beat up by Neri. I don't know if I like Neri for Clara, but I definitely don't like Daniel for Clara! I felt so betrayed when he gave the book to Clara because he was supposed to be the caretaker of the book, dammit! I think I would've been so much angrier at him than his father. I'm glad he got the book back after all and realized the importance of keeping it safe after his encounter with the devil guy. I need the books to be safe! ||

meager birch
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Up to 35- ||I didn’t expect Fumero to catch up with them outside of Saint Lucia’s but I knew it would happen at some point. I AM surprised that Clara made another appearance, as I expected her to be the “lost first love that never returned” and Bea is the new Love Interest. But who knows, since Daniel is repeating Julian’s romantic situation?

The bathroom scene in Chp 34 strikes me as a Typical Horror Trope in print, like the “two people sneak away and are the first casualties”.

I have a theory about Coubert being Jorge Aldaya but it’s not a serious one.||

meager birch
meager birch
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Nuria, Chp 1- ||SOMETHING’S up re: Julian and/or Daniel, but I don’t have enough evidence outside of “women either want me or want to mother me” and the pen (not ruling out that it’s a recurring scam)||

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Nuria, Chp 2- Flooshed despairge

meager birch
bitter graniteBOT
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I was wrong, and glad
of it because the truth is
far more compelling

- ctrlaltmerdel
meager birch
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Thanks HaikuBot

meager birch
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I have 40 pages left, but here’s the art on my Novelogue poster (67/100)

IMG_8222.jpg
meager birch
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Anyway I finished. 4.25/5, ||Would’ve been a 5/5 but the lechery was exhausting. The cyclical nature of characters and their relationships was really cool to see, and I was initially ‘meh’ about it until the Nuria section, in which I Really Got Into It. I thought for sure there’d be some reveal that some other character in the book was really Julian, and I wasn’t expecting that he’d be Coubert. Either way, I see why my ex likes this one so much||

stone sand
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Up to Ch 16 ||I really like that Fermin has joined the ranks as their assistant, and I also get that this book takes place in the 1940s/1950s but I don't like his creepy comments about women. He's an interesting character though, and I wonder if his past will come back to bite them. I also love that Daniel met up with Bea again. She's definitely a better match for him than Clara as a possible love interest, that's for sure! Daniel visiting Julian Carax's father's old place was interesting, I really like the scene with the caretaker, she seems to be easily charmed with Daniel. Still so much mystery about the author, and I'm now speculating that the author is actually Coubert and he hates his own works for some reason and wants to destroy them all ||

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Been slow on my reading lately, but trying to get a little reading done every day!

jovial rampart
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Finished, my goodness I really enjoyed that.

stone sand
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Up to Ch 42 - I got so angry with this book last night and couldn't sleep! kekcry I listen to audiobooks to sleep and it usually works well and I sleep like a baby but I got to a certain part last night where ||Daniel calls Bea because she hasn't called him in a while, and her father picks up and I'm so freaking angry at Daniel because like he says, he didn't stop to think about the consequences to her! I hate that the women are the ones who suffer in these "forbidden" relationships, and I also get that it's different times, but it does still happen even now and I hate that it's so unfair and men never think of how their foolish actions hurt the people they claim to love😭 ||

||I already disliked Daniel before this incident because I feel like he cannot be trusted - he said he would take care of the book and then just gave it to Clara back then, and sure he got it back but still. And then he meets Beatriz and on the first date(?!) brings her to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, and I'm like, do you understand what a secret is? Do you hold nothing sacred? I'm so mad at him! I have no idea what Bea sees in him! I don't see him as a good caretaker of the book, I don't see him as a good bf to Bea, I don't see him as a good friend to Bea's brother or Fermin, I don't see him as a good son. Ugh! Ugghhhh!!! I might also be extra cranky because of lack of sleep||

||All that being said, I must admit that I'm totally pulled into the story and very invested with Daniel and his friends "winning" even though I don't like him 😂 I really need Bea to be okay even though I'm suspecting that she's probably pregnant or something, since she's apparently visiting a doctor. I don't know what happened with Fermin and Nuria - last I know she was killed and Fermin is the suspect, I need to know what really happened!||

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||And apparently the current idea is that Coubert is Penelope's brother, but I'm thinking more and more that Carax is Coubert, especially since his father went to identify his body and the way it was written is very sus and I think Carax is probably still alive! Also obviously, the biggest villain here is Fumero, he's crazy and scary and disgusting and I hope he gets exactly what he deserves in the end. ||

||I also really love that at one point Carax was saying to Jorge about how books are mirrors, and the whole story with Carax is now being replicated with Daniel. I still think Daniel is an idiot and I still don't like him, but I am enjoying the story. And like them or not, their characters are definitely compelling and making me care enough about them at the cost of my sleep 😭 ||

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Off to read more!!

stone sand
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78% oh my god 😱

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||Penelope and Julian are brother and sister! 😱😱😱||

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Hmm... ||I wonder if Daniel and Bea are related too 🤔||

jovial rampart
stone sand
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Finished!!! Omg, this was such a wild ride!

||That whole section with Nuria's letter/novella was incredible! So many reveals! omg This was a reread but I remember exactly zero details from the first time and was absolutely shocked with the big reveal kek With all the parallels with Julian's story and Daniel's story, I had to wonder if Bea was also Daniel's sister, but I guess they wouldn't be because we needed a happy ending for them, and I'm glad they had a happy ending. It seemed like this book was going to be one tragedy after another; there were so many deaths, relationships destroyed, time wasted, and everyone was determined to live their worst lives and obsess over perceived slights and a desire for vengeance. It was so drama! So I am glad there was a relatively happy ending! ||

||I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that Julian never finds out that Penelope was his sister. I get the reasoning of not telling him so as to not sully his love for her, but at the same time I feel like it would've given him closure and understanding for why Penelope's father was so against their relationship and it might help him finally let her go? I don't know. It's a really hard call to make and I probably wouldn't want to be the person making that call either. ||

||I still don't completely like any of the characters as people, I feel like all of them have some very fatal flaws in one way or another. I thought maybe I liked Miquel the most because he seems so generous and open hearted towards Carax, but he was almost going to SA Nuria because of his jealousy, and that's an obvious nope for me. Nuria being with him even though she was in love with someone else was also cruel, and Carax himself wasn't much better for that reason and more! And we already know I think Daniel is an idiot. 🙄 ||

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||I love the characters as characters though! They were so vibrant and interesting, and so goddamn exasperating! I wanted to throttle them and tell them to grow up, get some common sense, make better choices! This is why we love reality tv, these people are messed up and I'm totally here for the drama kek I love/hate the characters in the same way that I hate the villains in reality tv but love that they are the ones giving the most drama kekcry || I do love the story and the intrigue and I'm so glad that I have a bad memory for books because it was so much fun to reread this like it was my first time reading it!

midnight inletBOT
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@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@willow ridge,@shell rune,@real kayak,@mild swan

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1 week left guys! I'm not going to extend this one any further but there's plenty of time left!

midnight inletBOT
mental sparrow
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Maybe this weekend poobSmirk

jovial rampart
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||“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”||

I'm late to do my little yap about this book because I've been kinda busy cowboyPeepowave But hopefully my short and sweet rating of 4.5 ⭐ will ignite people's motivation the final stretch to finish this book. It's a little daunting with it's nearly 500 pages but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't devour this book.

||“Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.”||

||A lot of the time I compared this book with The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt in terms of vibes - we have a chronical from the point of view from a young man who comes to own something incredibly rare and beautiful then what comes from him coming to own this piece of art. While The Goldfinch is fixed in early 2000s of America, this is set in the gritty, noir-like setting of 1945 Barcelona. The best way I can describe how this setting feels is like very old, slightly tarnished paper, this story feels like old books smell. Noice This book is the bastard child of a shadowy detective story and a twisty-turny telenovella - And I'm 100% here for it. ||

||I really can't sit here and relate the entirety of the story because there's just too much. After Daniel finds a copy of the rare book 'The Shadow of the Wind' it later becomes an endeavour of his to find out as much as possible about the mysterious writer of the novel, Julian Carax. All the while a mysterious man covered in facial burns seeks to find and burn the book. After a wistful longing for an older woman, he befriends and helps a homeless man after helping Daniel at a low point in his life who in returns by assisting him on his investigation into who Julian Carax really is.||

||The meta-elements both in and out of this novel are just CB_Chef_kiss Just as the fictitious novel was an echo of the book and Julian's life, I loved watching Daniel's life parallel Julian's. Both grew up poor without an ideal family life, fell in love with a rich girl who was the adoration of her father and whose brother was a best friend, evoked murderous anger from her father after impregnating her, and when they have a brush with death, extremes of hate and love anchored their fight to survive. As Julian's story unfolds, Daniel unwittingly finds himself in the exact same point of their duel destiny. Once Daniel is aware of the correlation, the comparison stops. The message is clear that we chose our own fate, it seems there was no fate but failure for Julian. The sad thing is I believed Julian's love for Penelope as it grew in obsession more than Daniel's love for Beatriz which seemed a happy chance of lust.||

||While wrapped up in all the drama of it all - accidental incest, sudden pregnancies, book burnings, police brutality, duels to the death, star-crossed lovers. It's not without a few issues. Much of the major revelations are usually told second-hand to Daniel and a lot of the time the perspective is a little...off. Like certain aspects that there's no way that the teller could know that? It's egregious and only a little distracting for me but it would be unfair if I didn't mention it. It's particularly noticable during Nuria's letter where a lot of Julian's history is laid bare at the end. The character voices are also not heavily defined against one another. suscat||
Cont.

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||The reverence and importance of books really appealed to me in a beautiful way. While no medium can convey pure, unqualified truth, books and written texts are the novel’s most reliable and trustworthy sources of information. When he first reads The Shadow of the Wind, Daniel feels that through reading the book he has accessed a truth that is both eternal and directly relevant to his life. Characters from the book proceed to appear in his real life, such as Lain Coubert, Julian Carax’s demonic alias, reinforcing the idea that literature can be viscerally present in one’s lived experience. PleadingHearts||

ANYWAY I rambled enough I think, I'm psyched to know that this is actually part of a Trilogy! I likely won't be hosting it here (unless I have enough people interested perhaps) but I'm absolutely going to continue with this.

real kayak
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Starting this one

real kayak
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Chap 2 || A one and only copy of the book. Lucky you! But this library sure is amazing. ||

real kayak
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Chap 7 || "Sisterly Brigade" hahaha Daniel is way too young for Clara. But I wonder what book will I pick if given a chance to enter the cemetery of forgotten books... ||

real kayak
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Chap 9 ||"To truly hate is an art one learns with time. ||

real kayak
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Chap 16 || “About women and other worldly matters, considerably more than you. 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.”

My gosh Fermin hahahaha ||

jovial rampart
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We're due to finish tomorrow but I can absolutely wait a few unofficial extra days for people to finish up shy

real kayak
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Almost done just a few pages

real kayak
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Finished!
|| The prose was beautiful and meaningful, the way Carlos Ruiz Zafon wrote was subtle and captivating at the same time. The characters were all a work of art, each and every one of them played an important role in the book.
This book was dark but at the same time it gave us hope. It was full of mysteries but everything made sense at the end of the book. Carlos didn't ignore any details, he tied up everything neatly and gave satisfactory explanations.
I didn't want this book to end, I took my time to savour every word and every phrase. ||

jovial rampart
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Ooh literally finished 2 minutes before the 23rd for me! CB_giggle
I'd just love your final thoughts when you have some time Christene and then I'll happily send the report.

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Plus I gotta know what you think about some of those later plot developments CB_popcatpopcorn

mental sparrow
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Dare I even attempt to try to fit this in today? sadBear

jovial rampart
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I'm happy to hold off for a few more days if you want to try Abi!

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Just let me know SUCC

mental sparrow
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I’m starting and will try my hardest to finish tonight

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The Cemetery of Forgotten Books: ||Its so sad that he lost his mum at such a young age and that neither him or his father have really gotten over. I love how magical he’s making books seem in this chapter too because that’s totally how I feel about them.||

jovial rampart
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Don't rush! Take your time, I'm happy to give it a few days Abi! CB_peeklove

mental sparrow
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Thank you Vaude pikakisses

mental sparrow
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Days of Ashes Chapter 2: ||Ooh, the other copies were burnt? I'm getting banned books vibes.||

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||I just had a google of how old braille is and I had no idea it was invented in the 1800s. I definitely thought it was newer than that but I'm glad that books have been a bit more accessible for people for 200 years.||

mental sparrow
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Chapter 4: ||I love how much mystery is surrounding Carax and his works so far||

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Chapter 6: ||That was a very ominous end to this part. I knew things were going to go wrong with Clara.||

mental sparrow
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Chapter 7: ||I'm so curious about who this dude is and why he's going round burning all of Carax's books. How did Daniel manage to get a copy of that book from the cemetery before this guy did too? I'm just very intrigued about where this is going.||

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Chapter 9: ||I was not expecting a sex scene in this nor 16(?) yo Daniel to be witnessing it hamShook ||

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||uh, I feel like Neri went way too far there but 100% Daniel shouldn't have been creeping on him and Clara.||

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||This beggar is just a teeny bit racist with him fetishising black women||

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Chapter 10: ||I'm not gonna lie, I don't quite get why he's so obsessed with Clara||

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Chapter 11: ||The talk about Barca winning the league. I genuinely thought they were always a really good team but I imagine this is during a time of Real Madrid dominance considering they're the other big team in Spain.||

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Chapter 16: ||Can we stop with the racism and misogyny? sobAUGH I don't care if it's historically accurate, it's horrible that people think like that||

mental sparrow
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||I'm definitely in the position of these characters being interesting but some of their views are just so out of line that I can't say that I actually like them if that makes sense. I definitely still want to know more about Carax though and I like how much Daniel is investigating it||

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Chapter 20: ||Nuria remarking that Daniel is like Julian is making me suspicious that Daniel unknowingly is currently in Julian's life. I could be completely wrong but that would make sense to me.||

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||The fact that Julian's life is a mystery even to those closest to him just builds on the intrigue surrounding him||

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||Lain Coubert is an alias from a book that he's been going around burning? Now I have even more questions.||

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||I don't believe that Julian is dead, just living in obscurity somewhere. Daniel really needs to get a handle on his feelings for women though because he always wants to kiss them or be with them when it's entirely inappropriate.||

mental sparrow
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Chapter 28: ||Halfway through, and is this book just going to be Daniel tracking down Julian's old lovers? omg I hope there's a bit more variety than that with his investigation.||

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||There are just certain passages in this that make it abundantly clear this was written by a man and it massively gives me the ick||

mental sparrow
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Chapter 31: ||I'm sorry but pissing on other people as a means to degrade them is absolutely vile||

mental sparrow
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Chapter 35: ||I hate having leaks in the house. They're always awful and completely demoralising.||

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||The end of that chapter HUHH ||

mental sparrow
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Chapter 40: ||Fumero absolutely needs to take a chill pill. He always seems to be so violent when he's on page.||

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||Nuria being murdered sobAUGH why can't women catch a break?||

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ooh the chapter numbering has started again for me

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Nuria Monfort Chapter 1: ||Okay pov change. I'm not sure how I'm gonna feel about this but why not||

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Chapter 2: ||Girl, why are you in that relationship? It sounds so toxic and your reasoning of trying to get revenge on Julian is just silly. Be with someone who makes you happy, not someone who says they want you but treats you like shit.||

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||I- that does not feel consensual at all to me.||

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Chapter 4: ||Dying in childbirth without medical attention and the baby also being stillborn sadBear it's so tragic.||

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Chapter 5: ||Fumero makes me sick. Why do I have to read about him getting off thinking about stabbing women?||

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Chapter 8: ||I couldn't even imagine being able to smell someone ill/dying. It sounds absolutely horrendous for everyone.||

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Chapter 10: ||Penelope was only 17 and she'd been locked up? Just awful||

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Chapter 13: ||I called Julian still being alive. All the evidence in the book pointed to that tbh so at least that's the central mystery solved.||

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The Shadow of the Wind Chapter 1: ||Take a shot every time Daniel gets beaten up in this book||

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Chapter 3: ||Of course Fumero has been following Daniel because he knew that he would lead him to Julian and he can finally take him out. He's gonna get his white whale.||

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Chapter 4: ||Daniel dying whilst protecting Julian. Whilst it's a teeny bit farfetched I can see why it ended that way.||

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Postmortem: ||He only temporarily died? What a copout kek ||

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Dramatis Personae: ||Of course he named his kid after Carax. What else was he going to be called? blobGiggle ||

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||Ooh, it all comes full circle? Interesting.||

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I finished. Thank you for waiting for me Vaude!

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Final thoughts: ||I feel like I'm in the minority here but I just really could not get past how women were written in this book. I do think there is a decent premise here with Daniel reading this book at a young age and becoming somewhat obsessed with the book and the author so he tracks him down. I like that, but I think the execution just wasn't as emotionally impactful for me as it could've been. Some of the reveals were wild like the incest, but I think there was just too much misogyny/sexism and violence in this for me to really enjoy it. I felt like I guessed quite a bit of where it was going including Julian burning his own books and him still being alive etc. so I think I was just hoping to be surprised more in a good way and I just wasn't. There were definitely parts of the text that felt poetic and were well written, but the treatment of women just felt so wrong to me that I can't really rate this any higher than about 2.25 ⭐||

round plinth
mental sparrow
round plinth
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I think the second book in this series is ||about that character's experiences in prison, it's a prequel to this one maybe? But I wooooon't be reading it||

mental sparrow
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but yeah if that's what the second book is about then it doesn't sound like it's for me at all

round plinth
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But that's okay! We tried!

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Lots of other books in the sea haha

mental sparrow
jovial rampart
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THANK YOU

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I knew I forgot SOMETHING

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I EVEN READ YOUR THOUGHTS WTF

mental sparrow
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I thought you were in a giving mood rn so I was taking a chance blobGiggle

jovial rampart
mental sparrow
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well a productive one anyway

midnight inletBOT
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@jovial rampart,@meager birch,@viscid basin,@round plinth,@inner kelp,@lethal isle,@stone sand,@zenith dome,@willow ridge,@shell rune,@real kayak

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A VERY LATE ending message!
Very sorry for the delay, I'm going to take care of the report right now.
Thank you in any case in joining me everyone! I really appreciate you taking the time to check this book out with me! <3

Perhaps in the future I may explore the rest of the books in the series but for now, I'm just happy to have started the journey with all of you!
See you in the next one!

midnight inletBOT
jovial rampart
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Finished: Thelastpage, Jana, Haze, Vaude, Christene_Littlelibrary, Abi.
Ping me if I have missed anyone TH_shy

meager birch
jovial rampart
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Lemme just sort that