99 problems, and a book ain't one

   WOW!! This book. I don't even know where to start or what to say! Charlene over @ http://charlene.booklikes.com/post/930160/the-shadow-of-the-wind-by-carlos-ruiz-zafon
  really said it best. The Shadow of the Wind truly had a little something for everyone. It was dark and mysterious, haunting, spellbinding, hopeful, hopeless, twist after twist, and a great coming of age story. It was all that, and so much more, all wrapped up in some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read.

  What a heart touching love story, and I'm not just talking about the characters, this was also a love between people and books. I might have loved that the most. Any bookworm knows intimately the feelings these characters felt when it came to their books. Whether you can relate with a young Daniel, having that love affair from the very beginning....

  "I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day."

Or maybe a Clara, whose love was awakened later on, and suddenly....

"Never before had I felt TRAPPED, SEDUCED, AND CAUGHT UP in a story," Clara explained, "the way I did with that book. Until then, reading was just a duty, a sort of fine one had to pay teachers and tutors without quite knowing why. I had never known the pleasure of reading, of exploring the recess of the soul, of letting myself be carried away by imagination, beauty, and the mystery of fiction and language. For me all those things were born with that novel."

  It was this one book, The Shadow of the Wind, that brought together so many people, for better and for worse. Once Daniel picked this magical novel from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, it was the beginning of a journey that would, unknowingly to him, shape his entire life.

   "It might have been that notion, or just chance, or it's more flamboyant realitive, destiny, but at that precise moment I knew I had already chosen the book I was going to adopt, or that was going to adopt me."

   "Perhaps the bewitching atmosphere of the place had got the better of me, but I felt sure that The Shadow of the Wind had been waiting for me there for years, probably since before I was born."

 These characters all jumped off the pages and came to life. I fell in love with so many of them, Daniel, his father, Carax, and Fermin. Oh Fermin....you are one of my absolute favorites!

  I was constantly left guessing at what would happen next in this enchanting tale. I was desperately trying to put the pieces of Carax's past together along with Daniel, while at the same time wondering what would happen with Daniel next in the present. It was masterfully done. You got to see some of the best in people, and some of the absolute worst too. It could go from filling your heart with warmth at the capacity of human kindness, to making you shudder in despair at the unmentionable things that the same species could be capable of. In between the best and the worst there were countless other little, or large, ripples cast from things as simple as a lie, or a lack of courage in a single moment. It showed the great and awful repercussions from these actions, or inactions.

  I think my highlighting function on my kindle got one hell of a work out here. The writing was so gorgeous, I just couldn't help myself. I wouldn't dream of ruining even a second of the experience that is reading this book, so I refuse to go in to any more detail in the plot. Do yourself a favor and pick this book up. It was a journey that I won't soon be forgetting.