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Loading... The Angel's Gameby Carlos Ruiz Zafón
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Requires too much suspension of your belief system. Too melodramatic. Over the top. Not my cup of tea, but many loved it. So...try it. (  ) smcbeth | Nov 24, 2009 |  didn't like it as much as I did Shadows of the Wind, which was outstanding. ( ) fordbarbara | Nov 19, 2009 | The Angel’s Game is a deliciously dark gothic tale. Between its pages are romance, intrigue, murder, and yes, another visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The story draws you in from the very first pages and doesn’t let you go until you discover that you’ve been holding your breath for hours and have completely forgotten where you are. When I occasionally looked up from it during my airport reading session, I was always surprised to see the bright lights and modern hustle and bustle around me because The Angel’s Game had me so thoroughly absorbed in the world of old Barcelona. You do not need to have read The Shadow of the Wind to be able to enjoy The Angel’s Game, which isn’t really a prequel so much as it is a new book placed in an older setting. Some of the landmarks are the same, and a few of the characters appear as their younger selves, and fans of The Shadow of the Wind will be pleased by these occurrences, but The Angel’s Game stands on its own as a phenomenal new novel for long-time fans and newcomers alike. If you love books and books about books, you don’t want to miss out on The Angel’s Game. (  )1  bnbooklady | Nov 16, 2009 | I have to agree with some of the other disappointed reviewers. The story is intriguing, but not as interesting as The Shadow of the Wind. I loved that one! (  ) kmmt48 | Nov 9, 2009 | I loved the murky dark and cold atmosphere, the reading is exciting, like a thriller at the last 100 pages but I think the end is unsatisfiying weared. (  ) brigitte64 | Nov 6, 2009 | 
 “Faust” this isn’t. Ruiz Zafón’s flamboyant pulp epic is something altogether sillier, a pact-with-the-devil tale whose only purpose is to give its readers some small intimation of the darker pleasures of the literary arts, the weird thrill of storytelling without conscience.  The early pages of the novel, focusing on the travails of a writer coming of age, call to mind Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. But we are not in the nuanced world of literary fiction; calamities pile up on poor Martin's head as they only can in a genre novel. He writes a book for his friend, another aspiring writer, only to see it praised by the same critics who pan his own novel; his girl abandons him and marries his best friend; and he is diagnosed with a brain tumour. The Angel's Game draws the reader into nothing more than a world where people who read, write, or collect books are shown to be special; it peddles narcissism. On the pretext of transporting readers to another time and place, it contracts their world. While much of this novel is highly enjoyable, at some latter point the tongue withdraws from the cheek. In wrapping up a host of absurd sub-plots, somewhere in there the writer loses his sense of humour. When the book ceases to be self-conscious about its own manipulations, it stops being fun. This won’t bother some readers; some will happily dive into the mysticism up to the neck. But others will miss the drollery and sophistication with which the novel began, and for these readers Zafón’s straight resolution will disappoint.
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:23 -0400)
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