The Shadow of the Wind

I've just finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and it was amazing, and i'm sure it's no coincidence that the author has a beard! It was lent to me by the one and only Physics friend, and I think it was even more mysterious than she said!

It's a story set in Barcelona in the mid 1900s and is about a boy, called Daniel Sempere, who is brought up around books. One night his father takes him to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which is where he finds the book that has been waiting for him since he has been born: The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. After staying up all night reading it, he wants to find more of this authors work so consults Barceló, an influential man in the city's second hand book trade. He is willing to buy the book for a very substantial price, as there have been mysterious disappearances of collections of Carax's books, due to a man called Laín Coubert who, in Carax's book, is the Devil. 
As Daniel gets older he befriends a man called Fermín Romero de Torres and begins to search for answers to the disappearance of Carax and his books, and for the reason why people are trying to stop him, are following him and lying to him.
It is an incredibly well written book. There were some very scary parts in the book and I felt how the characters were feeling at those points. At times I thought I knew what going to happen, I was sure of it, but then I would turn out to be completely wrong. It's a really good book, filled with twists and turns and answers and more questions and I would definitely recommend reading this!
Thank you for the recommendation Physics friend :).


I've also read a book called Fallen by Lauren Kate. It was about angels, like Hush Hush and Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick. It was good, and I really liked the ending. I was worried it wasn't going to be very good because the book wasn't as good as I had thought it would have been but the ending made up for it. This book was also filled with mystery but it was much easier to guess what was going to happen than in The Shadow of the Wind but not because it wasn't written well, it was because  The Shadow of the Wind was just written too well!

I have been reading a lot of books recently. I think it's due to the fact it's the Easter holidays, and I have a lot of work and revision to do and I don't want to do it. So I just spend my days reading and/or eating. I still have a whole list of books to read though:

1. Pretties by Scott Westerfield (sequel to Uglies) then the third book: Specials, then the forth: Extras.
2. Torment by Lauren Kate (sequel to Fallen, and there's a third book, Passion, coming out soon).
3. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (also recommended by the Physics Friend).
4. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare (which is a four part series and Alex Pettyfer is going to play one of the characters in the film ^.^).
5. Lies by Michael Grant (sequel to Gone and Hunger, and then the forth book, Plague).

So altogether that is 12 books to read! I've never had to do so much before, hopefully they'll all be good! It may take a couple years to get through all of this though, I do sometimes have a life ;).

Oh, another thing I wanted to mention was that I was listening to Katy Perry's album, lent to me by Lauren (thanks) and E.T. came on, and for some reason i've only just discovered it and it is amazing So check it out if you have the time :).

P.S. during the Summer Holidays and I don't have any work to do i'm hoping my blog will become a little more exciting than me just talking about books all the time. So be prepared for awesome ;).