Book Post: The Labyrinth of the Spirits

My favorite book of all time (at least so far) is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and imagine my thrill when I found out that it would be continued into a series! Ruiz Zafón's gothic prose flows like poetry, fittingly translated from the original Spanish text into English by Lucia Graves, daughter of poet Robert Graves. The four books in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books cycle can theoretically be read in any order, although I feel that they are most impactful in the order in which they were written. All four stories take place in Spain around the time of the Spanish Civil War, each telling a different character's story at a slightly different time, but inevitably interweaving to create a rich narrative tapestry.

Title: The Labyrinth of the Spirits

Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Premise: 

This story encapsulates both the beginning and the end of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, telling the origins of Fermín Romero de Torres, the future of Daniel Sempere's family, and interweaving a new character, Alicia Gris, into all of it. Daniel, who the reader meets as a child in the antebellum Barcelona of The Shadow of the Wind, is now an adult, grappling with rage from recent discoveries about his family's history. In a flashback, the reader learns more about Daniel's beloved and mysterious friend Fermín's dark past, showing his connection to Alicia Gris. By the 1950's, Alicia lives a dangerous and intriguing life in Madrid, but she is brought back to Barcelona to help solve mysteries that hit closer to home than she might have expected.

My Thoughts:

I love this book. Since I have been reading my way through this series for well over a decade, I had forgotten a lot of details leading up to this story, so I buried myself in a pile of Carlos Ruiz Zafón's books in order to reread bits and pieces along the way. I'm not gonna lie -- I reread at least 50% of each of the earlier books from the series during my process of piecing all of the details together. No regrets.

As I was reading the series, I have to admit that The Angel's Game and The Prisoner of Heaven were nowhere as good as The Shadow of the Wind, but looking back on it all, the middle two books played integral roles in developing the world inhabited by these characters who I love so much. Since each book highlighted a different character at a different point in their timeline, I got to understand and care deeply about everyone. By the time I got to The Labyrinth of the Spirits, I was thrilled to piece everything together and fully understand how it all fit together, but there was no way to be emotionally prepared to let them all go. Did I cry at the end? You bet I did!

Bottom Line:

The Shadow of the Wind got a run for its money as my favorite book of all time when I read The Labyrinth of the Spirits, but the latter would not have the same impact without the influence of the former. Both books are dark, mysterious, and flow poetically from the pages like espresso from a moka pot. This is not a bright, sunshiny day kind of book; The Labyrinth of the Spirits is best suited for a cloudy winter day. When reading in the evening, you will crave white wine with this one.