"Am învățat că uneori singurătatea e un drum care conduce la pace."

Me ha gustado mucho este libro, y a momentos hasta me ha hecho sentir miedo (aunque en mi defensa (o no) diré que soy muy poregueta). Si bien es cierto que no me ha parecido nada nuevo, si no más bien una amalgama de tramas pasadas, eso no quita que lo haya disfrutado y vivido como los otros.

Actual Ratings: 3.5

I enjoyed it but I must admit I'm a scardy cat with it comes to erry/creepy tales. This one had it fill of creepy creatures.

Fourteen-year-old Irene Sauvelle and her family are left desperate and destitute when Irene’s father dies and leaves them buried in debt. They happen upon some good luck when a family friend offers Irene’s mother, Simone, a job working for Lazarus Jann, a reclusive toymaker and inventor who lives in a mansion called Cravenmoore. Their new life in the seaside village seems idyllic until a young girl is brutally murdered. As events surrounding Cravenmoore become more disturbing, Irene begins to reconsider the veracity behind the local ghost stories and becomes curious about the secrets being closely guarded by the brilliant yet mysterious Lazarus Jann.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, who was taken from us MUCH too soon, gives us a spine-tingling, hair-raising, and heart-pumping story that is begging to be brought to the screen (hint, hint Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video). The Watcher in the Shadows—which is book three in the Niebla series, but can be read as a standalone—is a suspenseful young adult horror that wastes no time in bringing the story’s action to full steam. Each chapter brings an escalation in the danger, as well as several eye-opening revelations that keep the reader guessing until the end.

Given the current horror offerings inundating cable and movie screens lately, I was hesitant to pick up anything in this genre, but I knew Zafón would hand me a winner…and he did. Rather than going for the instant and predictable shock value by filling pages with copious amounts of guts and gore, he instead delves into your deepest fears by setting his scenes in darkness and using various light sources to allow walls, ceilings, and floors to become the playground for shadows that slither, slink, and stalk. Zafón exploits our primal fears by writing about situations involving drowning, delirium, confinement, abandonment, and isolation and he does so with calculated effectiveness.

This book is written for grades seven and up, but its underlying theme of technology vs humanity is one that any age could benefit from. Zafón wrote The Watcher in the Shadows in 1995, which coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web as a global medium for information access. Fast forward almost thirty years later and we’re now a society where gadgets and gizmos control almost every aspect of our life. And while The Watcher in the Shadows is not an overtly cautionary tale of automation overtaking humanity, it does serve as a subtle warning of the dangers that can occur when we depend on technology to fill the void left by loneliness and grief…an emptiness that once was filled by humans.

The stories in this young adult series aren't connected at all. They all have a great sense of mystery and fantasy, but one is set in Spain, the other in India, and this one in France.
How much better than Prince of Mist this book is! I couldn't put it down. His characters are REAL! REAL I tell you. There's so much emotion in his words I don't know how Ruiz Zafon can keep cranking stories like this one.
Easier to relate than The Midnight Palace, this story gives us a glimpse of Andreas Corelli, a pivotal character in Angel's Game. I love to see the origin of the ideas for Shadow and Angel's Game. I wish I had this book when I was growing up. This author is a magician of words. What a gift he has!

Este livro surpreendeu-me pela positiva. É um livro muito cativante: fiquei apaixonada pela história, que achei muito bem construída. A escrita bonita a que o Zafón me habituou espreitava aqui ocasionalmente, mas sentia-se bem que a prioridade era o enredo. É um livro indiscutivelmente juvenil e, pareceu-me, muito bem conseguido nessa área.
Este homem não me desilude!
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

Es el último de la trilogía, se pueden leer por separados, un misterio bien construido, las descripción de algunas escenas me pusieron los pelos de punta, siempre que las historias involucran muñec@s mecánicos y ese ambiente un poco creepy de neblina, bosques, es para mi alerta de algo que viene de donde no lo esperamos. La historia está ambientada en Francia, tenemos una familia que se mudan a este pueblo cerca del bosque de Cravenmoré después de la muerte del padre; Simone la madre acepta un trabajo como ama de llaves en la casa de un retirado fabricante de juguetes llamado Lazarus. Cuando la familia llega a la casa descubre una ambiente particular, la casa y los jardines están llenos de juguetes, autómatas, muchos de ellos con tamaños de personas reales. Irene de 16 años, hija de Simone hace una nueva amiga en este lugar, Hannah quien le presenta su primo Ismael, desde el primer momento Irene e Ismael se atraen y se sienten bien juntos, el misterio inicia cuando un día Hannah entra en esta misteriosa casa y en unas de sus habitaciones encuentra un frasco de perfume con algo turbio y de color negro en su interior, su curiosidad la lleva a abrir el frasco, liberando un sombra que la persigue por el bosque, al siguiente día encuentran la chica muerta. Desde ese momento sucesos sobrenaturales empiezan a suceder en el pequeño pueblo.

De esta novela me gusto el agregado de los "autómatas", que son una especie de juguetes mecanizados, que actúan por voluntad propia. Al igual que sus otras dos obras "El príncipe de la niebla" y "El palacio de la Medianoche", comparten la idea de mundos fantasiosos, con drama, misterio, suspenso, terror y romance juvenil, así que es difícil encasillar estas obras con un solo género.
Con este libro cerraría la trilogía de novelas llamadas "juveniles" de Carlos Ruiz Zafón y la verdad ha sido una grata experiencia. Sin duda, continuaré leyendo las obras que me faltan de este gran autor.

This was the third and probably my favorite of Zafon's young adult series. A steampunk type theme of a reclusive toy maker with a house full of automatons, it was spooky and fun. It kept me page turning until the end, and although the characters were a little flat, the themes of young love, loss, and finding yourself are prevalent throughout the entire book and are well written. Zafon's writing can never be called boring, but as I've said before, he writes adult books so beautifully, it seems almost a shame to waste his talent on young adult. But if you are a young adult, or someone who enjoys a light mystery with some fantasy elements and high suspense, this book is for you!

Una lectura entretenida y ágil de leer, que te tiene pensando qué viene, aunque en momentos es muy predecible...

2/5 stars

I’m sorry but this was just… no…

The mediocre romance, the mediocre plot… I didn’t enjoy this at all and was just BEGGING for the book to go faster or to end soon.

I didn’t like the fantasy or the horror aspects. The characters were too blank… so many stuff someone would have to judge for themselves.

This trilogy wasn’t what I expected it to be. But oh well, hopefully my next read is more enjoyable.

2,5/5