Reviviendo mi adolescencia parte II.

Hay que decir que lo recordaba bastante mejor. Esta vez me ha parecido bastante previsible la mayor parte de la trama, pero teniendo en cuenta que es un libro de literatura juvenil, tampoco voy a ser muy quisquillosa porque entretener, entretiene.

from Murphy's Library — http://www.murphyslibrary.com/

I’ve been presented to Zafón’s writing with The Shadow of the Wind, a few years ago. I remember it took me a while to really get into the book, but once I did it, I couldn’t put the book down until I was done reading it. So when I saw Book it Forward had this ARC open for a tour, I quickly signed up. And I’m glad I did it, because Zafón got me hooked again!

The Midnight Palace tells us the story of the twins Ben and Sheere. They were newborns when their mother died—their father earlier—, and they were saved by Peake, a young British lieutenant who loved their mother. A man was after the twins, but Peake managed to deliver them to their grandmother, right before losing his life. Aryami Bose lost her daughter, and she couldn’t bear losing her grandchildren as well, so she made what she thought it was the best: she separated and hid them.

Ben was taken to St. Patrick’s Orphanage, where he was raised by Mr. Carter with another orphans. On the night Mr. Carter accepted Ben there, a mysteryous man came to talk to him, asking about a baby he may have accepted there—but he denied such thing. Mr. Carter followed Aryami’s instructions and didn’t tell the man there was a new baby at the orphanage. Sheere was raised by Aryami, but they never stayed too long on the same place, they were always moving and hiding.

At the orphanage, Ben had a family, the other orphans. They created what they call The Chowbar Society, kind of a club that met at The Midnight Palace—and old house—, there were seven of them, six boys, one girl. On his 16th birthday, he met Sheere and Aryami, and he quickly became friends with Sheere, although he had no idea she was his twin sister. Aryami was there to warn Mr. Carter about the danger Ben’s into, the boy must run away as soon as possible, because the mysteryous man is coming after him, sooner or later.

When Mr. Carter saw himself facing the man again, he was sure Aryami was telling the truth. He told Ben to run, to go after Aryani and Sheere, and that’s exactly what he did, but he’s not alone. The Chowbar Society went with him—they’ve sworn to protect each other. That’s when Ben learned the truth about his family and started to find out more about the man who was chasing him and Sheere.

The Midnight Palace is an emotional roller coaster. You have to fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride, because you won’t see the clock running. Part of the story is told by one of the boy’s POV, so we get to see Ben through his best friend’s eyes. I was already aware of Zafón’s style because of The Shadow of the Wind, so I kinda saw what was behind the by mystery on this story, but he knows how to tell a story, he knows how to hook you into it. This is the second book on a trilogy, but I must confess I hadn’t read the previous book, The Prince of Mist, and this was not a problem, once apparently the books stand well by themselves.

Una historia muy chula que, aunque forma parte de una "trilogía", se puede leer de forma independiente.

La trama se desarrolla en Calcuta en los años 30 y es protagonizada por un grupo de adolescentes. Como prólogo, se nos sitúa 16 años antes, con el nacimiento de dos hermanos a los que un siniestro personaje quiere asesinar. Los niños son separados y la historia se inicia 16 años después, cuando el villano persecutor vuelve a aparecer en escena.

El desarrollo del libro mantiene un misterio constante y te anima a seguir leyendo. Por ponerle una pega, a veces se hace un poco pesada la carga descriptiva del autor pero lo cierto es que escribe muy muy bien y por ahora es el libro que más me ha gustado.

Ya sólo me queda el último!

Great story by an amazing storyteller!!!

Bueno! creo que este escritor se empeña en hacernos sufrir con tramas como estas, fué algo previsible lo ocurrido desde el principio, pero muy enganchable y amena la lectura.

Esto me dejó

This one reads like classic Zafon, of whom I am a big fan. The atmosphere of this book, while set in Calcutta, is not too far off from his later books set in Barcelona (Shadow of the Wind, Angel's Game). It's a bit dreamy, a lot creepy and maybe even a bit magical. The story opens with a British soldier delivering infant twins from imminent danger. The twins are separated by their grandmother to keep them safe from those who might wish them harm. The boy twin, Ben, is raised in an orphanage where our story resumes nearly 16 years later.
Ben and his closely-knit group of friends, all orphans, are nearing the end of their days in the orphanage and preparing to move on to the outside world. One night an old woman and her granddaughter arrive and things start to get strange. Slowly but surely, the granddaughter, Seere and Ben realize that they are siblings. Not only that, but that both of the lives appear to be in danger from a mysterious entity that is somehow connected to their later father, a brilliant engineer responsible for building the train system connecting major cities in India. The father, however, passed on in a horrific fire at the grandiose Jheeter's Gate when the train, also carrying 300 orphans, caught fire and destroyed the train, the station and the lives of everyone aboard. Now, a mysterious stranger calling himself Jawahal is after the twins, but Ben and his friends are determined to get to the bottom of the whole affair before anyone gets hurt.
I must say, I did figure out the "who dunnit" element long before the book was nearing completion, mainly because it's a totally "Zafon" thing to do. If you've read his stuff and read this, then you'll probably know what I mean. What I did need to figure out was the why, which is what kept me going. The setting for the book is almost a character in and of itself as are several of the locations throughout, including the titular "Midnight Palace". A fun and haunting read.

Note: I received the ARC of this book from the publisher. I am not in any way compensated for this review (shucks).

No logro encontrar la relación entre la primera novela de la trilogía y esta. Tal vez en la próxima, que cierra la serie, se me desvele.
Esta novela, mucho más intensa y apasionante que la anterior, para mí como lectora al menos, tiene un narrador más implicado, que mira su juventud con añoranza por aquel que fue y aquellos que fueron, pese a los terribles hechos que narra, y se da la vuelta a contemplar esa historia tremenda con sus actuales ojos de viejo que rememora.
Esa especie de nostalgia por su juventud y aquellos amigos que se perdieron impregna toda la narración, pese a, como digo, estar narrando unos hechos bastante horribles.
Al contrario que en la novela anterior de la trilogía, aquí ya se narra con un estilo definido, que hace vislumbrar el que definiría su tetralogía posterior.
El quién lo cuenta y el cómo sonn tan importantes como la historia en sí (al contrario que en el libro anterior) y te hacen ver esa nostalgia de lo perdido inexorablemente, que no dice, pero está ahí impregnándolo todo.
Me encantó. GL Libre (Zafón)

Un truño como una casa.

As always, Zafon is a masterful storyteller and from the very first sentence I was entranced. His lyric prose alone is reason enough to read his works but, in this particular story, he seems to shine with a youth orientated plot of mystery, adventure and suspense all rolled together. Zafon has this ability to capture the world around him with such unique and realistic descriptions that it makes you feel like you have dropped into the middle of this world he has created – both the good parts of his world and the darker, more sinister ones. Although it’s been on my TBR shelf for ages, I had not yet read the first in this series but when I received the galley proof, I jumped at the chance to read it and had no problem following the story and characters. The book although listed in some places as juvenile really is for the YA audience. The word choices, grammar usage and content are not for the younger set and most would get discouraged and give up just a few pages in. Older and advanced readers might want to give it a try but I think the book would be better aimed at the high school set.

Flat, boring characters. No reason to care about any of them.

Drugi dio trilogije mi je znatno lošiji. Možda sam već zasićena Zafonovom maštom,maglovitim i mračnim prizorima,djecom detektivima i uvijek prisutnim vragom. Ipak,Zafon je majstor dočaravanja ambijenta i uvijek ima "u rukavu" nešto jezivo-privlačno za ponuditi.
Uskoro krećem i na treći dio...šteta je propustiti.