In my yearlong course to read everything of Carlos Ruiz Zafon, I am now into his recent YA novels, each that have a similar theme to them. I loved the quartet/quintent of novels that comprise the Shadow of the Wind/Cemetery of Forgotten Books Series. I also loved Marina. There are four of these novels left, the first is the Prince of Mist. This second one, called the Midnight Palace is also named Niebla #2. But I have no idea who Niebla is, nor how the books might be connected. Even though they are extremely similar in nature and style. There is a Niebla #3.

The Midnight Palace does divert from the usual style as it is set in Calcutta, not Spain. But all the rest of the other elements are there. Children in danger, due to a dark spirit from the past, usually that falls into a familial generation line of past wrongs and misdeeds mixed with mental illness. There are haunted mansions, fire, a child or children sought for death. There are dark tunnels mixed with old legends. It was a dark, misty, poorly constructed kind of a mess. It was hard to follow, and I didn't quite like it. My guess is that the last two novels will resemble more of the same. But I guess we will see.

n  “Those places where sadness and misery abound are favoured settings for stories of ghosts and apparitions.”n


I think I can sum up my disappointment in this book in a sentence:
Fantastic ideas that are described in breathtakingly beautiful prose but never explained properly.

This isn’t going to be a long review because I had the same problems with this book as I did with The Prince of Mist.
There was just not enough explanation and, it might just be me, but I couldn’t get over that. I’m trying so hard not to delve into spoilers but so many crazy things happened throughout which would have been brilliant (and were certainly unique!) had I just been given a reason as to why they were happening. Without this, I just couldn’t believe it and I wasn’t sure that I understood the majority of it.
I don’t mind suspending my disbelief and I love magical realism (it’s my favourite kind of realism!) but only when what’s happening makes sense.
And, to me anyway, parts of this story didn’t.

But anyway, enough of the negative stuff, let’s move on to the positives.
Because there were tons of things I liked about this book.
First up I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again I love love looooove how Mr RZ constructs a sentence. Seriously, his prose is just absolutely stunning.
I’ve never been to Calcutta and I don’t know what the streets look like or how the mist rolls off the Hooghly River but with passages like this:

“The further he went, the more the station made of glass and steel seemed to melt into the city- a jungle of marble mausoleums blackened by decades of neglect; naked walls once coated in ochre, blue and gold, their colours peeled away by the fury of the monsoon, leaving them blurred and faded, like watercolours dissolving in a pond.”

I am instantly transported there. Just gorgeous.
I also think that, aforementioned problems aside, Mr RZ definitely knows how to tell a thrilling story. Even though I didn’t understand a few bits, the ending was so gripping! I’ve said before that I love authors who aren’t afraid to put their characters (and readers for that matter!) through the ringer and Mr RZ is definitely not afraid to do this.
I was afraid, however, because I’m sure he has a list of all my worst nightmares and just throws them all in to spite me!

And then there are his characters. Even though I did get a bit annoyed by the fact that the adults are conveniently absent throughout this whole story, I loved that the children are the focus of the book. With such a colourful cast, it was easy to imagine yourself in that dilapidated house and I liked how his children actually act like children, too. Too often in MG/YA books, the children are impossibly ‘mature’ but in both of the books I’ve read by Mr RZ his characters are still children in the best sense: full of wonder, full of imagination, and members of secret clubs that require a password and only permit special girls to join!
My favourite character was Ben with his love for “complex puns” and his love for writing plays that are described as “a phantasmal piece of gibberish in which everyone died, including the stagehands.”

Ha!

I know I seem to have written a lot without actually saying anything, so I apologise. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did The Prince of Mist because there seemed to be a lot more depth to the story and the setting was absolutely gorgeous.
I’d definitely recommend this book to people who don’t need to know every single thing and who can just sit back and enjoy the book for what it is.
Just because I’m not one of those people, doesn’t mean that you won’t be. Give it a try just for his prose, if anything!

You can read this review and lots of other exciting things on my blog here.

Me gustó que Carlos Ruiz Zafón dejó el libro sin modificar en la edición que leí. Es una historia bonita, se disfruta.

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)

أسلوب كارلوس! مبهج العودة له.

و ما أعتبرها رواية لليافعين، لأني انرعبت

SPOILER ALERT!

I was very disappointed in this book. I liked Prince of Mist, but this book was not nearly as good (and I didn't think Prince of Mist was great).

For one thing, Grandma does not want anyone telling Sheere that her father was a bad man. But Grandma was the one who, for her whole life, has been telling Sheere that her father is a good man. But she knew his spirit was hunting his children to kill one of them. So why did she build him up in Sheere's mind in the first place?

How can Ben and Sheere have a mystical connection because they were twins separated at birth?

Why did Dad kidnap Ben's friends and tie them up? Why didn't he just kill them all and then kill Ben?

Whatever happened to their father's home? Why did he build it so weird?

How can they believe one minute that the bad guy knows they are there, because the miniature train starts going around the tracks and has three miniature figures of them inside, and then the next minute feel they are safe enough to go to sleep in separate rooms?

And why is it the girl always has to be the one sacrifice herself?

The story was not that interesting. It was difficult to follow. Explanations were given in character speech, going on for pages. Couldn't the author find a way to show, not tell? I was actually kind of angry by the end because I really wanted to like the book and find it creepy, like Prince of Mist. I don't understand why VOYA had it as a starred review.

The cover art is great, though.


Product Description
In the heart of Calcutta lurks a dark mystery....

Set in Calcutta in the 1930s, The Midnight Palace begins on a dark night when an English lieutenant fights to save newborn twins Ben and Sheere from an unthinkable threat. Despite monsoon-force rains and terrible danger lurking around every street corner, the young lieutenant manages to get them to safety, but not without losing his own life. . . .

Years later, on the eve of Ben and Sheere's sixteenth birthday, the mysterious threat reenters their lives. This time, it may be impossible to escape. With the help of their brave friends, the twins will have to take a stand against the terror that watches them in the shadows of the night--and face the most frightening creature in the history of the City of Palaces.

My disappointment in this book can be described in three words:

Insufficiently explained superpowers.

Sin duda me gusta Zafón, todas y cada una de sus historias. Esta, pese a que pasé algo de miedo porque soy una cobarde, no podía ser menos. La ambientación por una vez fuera de Barcelona ha sido fantástica y toda la historia con los chicos y los fantasma de lujo. Una delicia de novela en la que como siempre en este autor hay mucha, pero mucha niebla ^_^

Читање на плажи, књига прва. Изгорела сам док је нисам прочитала целу, што би ваљда требало да значи да ми је заокупирала плажу. Добра је, али, по мом мишљењу, најслабија из серијала. Крај ми је био чудан. Остатак приче солидан. Не могу заиста да напишем неки дужи утисак од овог, тако да ето овако сада, а можда се некад вратим за нешто дуже. Прочитала сам је да бих завршила серијал (који нисам читала правилним редоследом) и ово је можда његова најслабија књига, али као што рекох добра је. Једини проблем је што сам читала његове боље и сада ми је у поређењу са њима онако.
Неко би по овоме наисаном вероватно помислио  да ми се утисци и оцена не слажу, али свакако, сматрам да је квалитетна и да није чисто губљење времена читати је, ако узмемо у обзир да је написана за тинејџ узраст и да се од ње онда не може очекивати ништа толико озбиљни и вау. Фантастични мотиви су остали.

Me gusta mucho Ruiz Zafón, no es el mejor de sus mejor libro, pero merece la pena leerlo.

Esto me dejó

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.