The Watcher in the Shadows

This was definitely my favourite book out of the Mist Trilogy! For starters, the story was so much more engaging and exciting than the rest of the trilogy. The main characters finally did something that helped them discover the truth, and the major findings didn't only come from pages and pages of character speech. Without giving away too much, I loved the ending, which totally surprised me, and all the twists and turns in between.

The characters seemed much more real than in the previous two books: I actually felt like I knew Irene and the little Dorian, and I cared deeply about them and their mother Simone. The relationships between the characters were also far more engaging, and really formed the backbone of the novel. Going beyond show more the pure "supernatural-mystery-story" aspect of this book, for me this was really about love (or its absence) in its various forms, from the thrills of Irene and Ismael's first, teenage love to the tenderness of Simone's motherly love, right up to Lazarus Jahn's desperate love for his wife. Now, this might just be me, but I thought this subtext really added a lot of depth to the reading, and kept the story moving even in its potentially weakest points.

This book also gets bonus points for the introduction of Andreas Corelli - a central character in The Angel's Game - once again a mysterious and disturbing presence in the story. In typical Ruiz Zafón-style, the whole atmosphere of the novel was at once sinister and enchanting, purely gothic with just the right amount of creepiness and mysteries to keep you going until the end. I would definitely recommend this to all fans of Ruiz Zafón's work and to anyone looking for a good mystery with a touch of romance: you'll be intrigued, entertained, and not at all disappointed.

You can read this review and more on my blog. show less

I’ve now read all the YA books CRZ wrote and enjoyed them all — except this one. It read like it was written with special effects in mind for a movie version. Characters and plot did not interest me.

Frankly, I expected more.

The plot was pretty good, and parts of it were exciting, but in other parts, I felt I was going to fall asleep. The characters lacked depth and were merely irritating.

I skipped the entire battle at the end because I thought reading it would be useless. It was long and tiring and smeared on too many pages. I understood the ending without reading the passage that was supposed to be important.

I also liked large parts of the book, but in the end, it is merely a reconstruction of other plots and other stories that the writer wrote.

Even though I love Ruiz Zafón, I didn't think much of this book. It started well and it was very intriguing; but as it moved on it switched to a whole supernatural weird machinery thing that I can't even describe. I am sorry to say that I don't recommend this book since it is going to make you loose faith in the writer at the end.

I think if I was much younger and reading this late at night, I would have found it much more frightening. Now I'm just a bit too old and cynical to be affected by this sort of book. Sad, that.

I think if I was much younger and reading this late at night, I would have found it much more frightening. Now I'm just a bit too old and cynical to be affected by this sort of book. Sad, that.

Nicely atmospheric with creepy automatons.