Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Believe it or not but I am shooting for an objective review here :-) But the subjective part first: I wasted money on this book because of the many positive reviews it has earned, the cool cover, and the utterly misleading comparisons to Borges, Eco, etc. Just because the book copies a labyrinthine library concept from Borges doesn't make the book worthy of the least talented disciple of Borges'. Early into the book I found myself struggling with the author and losing the battle: he has been successfully undermining my best intentions in finding another literary adventure in this volume. Each time I succeeded in psyching myself up to some interesting Atmosphere, he would strike back with some naive stereotypical character/scene and ruin my efforts back to square one. It felt such a loss of time... Now, at least a month later, after the dust settled, it STILL feels like a complete waste of time :-) Or perhaps the feeling is even more pronounced: I find myself mercifully unable to remember most of the "contents." For instance, even though the action takes place in Barcelona, I cannot recall any "mental views" of the city so poorly is it described; it feels like some totally 'generic' city. The same is true about the characters, except for the stupidest ones (Fumero), who continue to haunt me for their inhuman articiciality. I have to trash this book, unable to give it to anyone in good faith; the book's images of The Cemetary of Forgotten Books and of a character seeking out and burning books are more than fitting for the "Shadow" itself; it might have been Zafon's own subconsciousness oozing the unpleasant truth. Now the promised objective part. If you look at the reviews you can't help noticing many enthusiastic ones; statistically most people liked the book. Mr. Zafon has been successful in effectively targeting his market segment. I cannot therefore predict whether you will find the book worthless or a good read; for all its content-free simplicity the book does get engaging and can work as a commuter rail pastime (hence the 1 star)(Just joking :-) 1 star is the lowest at Amazon; there is no zero! Which means that even with all minimal ratings any book will average at least one out of five stars). For a taste of Real Literature I recommend "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. Luckily, I discovered Marakami after the "Shadow" sub-experience and quickly regained faith in Literature as a lasting, deep, meaningful cultural experience. Amen.