"Your Face Tomorrow" was a perplexing read. A spy story, history lesson, and novel of ideas rolled into one...yet not much happens. I found myself gripped by the story, yet wondering, "What's going on here?" ( )

Me gusta mucho como escribe Javier Marías. Lo cierto es que es un libro para leer con paciencia y sin ningún tipo de prisa. En todo el volumen pasan cuatro o cinco cosas, y el resto son diálogos y reflexiones del protagonista (y no lo digo como defecto). Con la excepción de un trecho promediado el libro, el nivel interés es muy alto. Y no digo más, que me faltan dos volúmenes para acabar el libro. ( )

Me gusta mucho como escribe Javier Marías. Lo cierto es que es un libro para leer con paciencia y sin ningún tipo de prisa. En todo el volumen pasan cuatro o cinco cosas, y el resto son diálogos y reflexiones del protagonista (y no lo digo como defecto). Con la excepción de un trecho promediado el libro, el nivel interés es muy alto. Y no digo más, que me faltan dos volúmenes para acabar el libro. ( )

An extremely original highbrow spy story, one where spies try and look at the deep nature of people to discover their trustworthiness and usefulness. Amazing and beautiful at times; unnecessary convoluted and sinuous at others --and the prose might be difficult for most readers. It's the first of three books; I'm hooked to read the next two. ( )

After "Heart so White" -my first Marias-, I was so smitten that I was disappointed by almost anything I would read, even other of Marias' books.

The book is written in Marias' usual style, using and re-using the same sentences in different contexts until, by accumulation, their meaning becomes incredibly dense and the words acquire a gravity that does not allow your mind to wander off. You might stop reading to think, but it will be about the ideas of the book, its characters or the action in it, your mind will really leave this book until a good time after you have stopped reading it.

SPOILERS

The main character of this book can foretell how people will act in the future. He does so by reading their actions and their speech even without interacting with them. This skill sets forth the case for the validity of first impressions. It delves into how our first impressions, when lacking of any interest on our part, are usually right and how we receive a lot of information that we will just not process because we are unwilling to do so. The protagonist's willingness to accept this information, to correctly judge people without knowing too much, brings him into contact with an agency of what seem to be spies where he analyses people taking his intuitions to the extreme.

SPOILERS' END

Being this the first volume of a trilogy, the book ends just before the „real“ events start taking place, which can be somewhat disappointing but the collection of interesting characters, spies and brilliant thoughts make up for it and keep you going for days while wondering how the story will go on. ( )