Angel's Game

I shouldn't be fighting my active mind at night time. My regular sleeping pattern has pushed itself back to around 2:30. Last night I tried to get to sleep at a reasonable time, 1:40 and failed massively. I didn't even get a very good sleep. I should have been writing. Instead I lay in bed and thought of all the different combinations in go and actually found myself thinking about Angel's Game. It's about time I started a review on it.

SPOILERS












Angel's Game is the second of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's books. I must agree with the blurb, it is a 'worthy successor' to Shadow of the Wind. However, I don't recognize it as a masterpiece. In fact it's forgettable. That's maybe why I haven't had the urge to write this review.
The story is a little carefree in it's final stage of development. The curse of his house and the voodoo that staves off death resolved very simply. Instead of having a true side story about Salvadore and his love for DM's wife Zafon transforms the entire story into a side-effect of the original that was never told. That Andreas Corelli can't be said to have existed and the MC's madness never having a resolution that could have contributed to the MC's personal development seemed like major cop-outs.
The story was exciting but ultimately disappointing. I expected so much from it. It built itself up to a long anti-climax. BUT! The walkthrough format of the book made me think of unrelated things, concerning life, in great detail. That's the real beauty of this book. The language is so flowery that sometimes you can't continue to suspend disbelief and instead your mind ends up wondering alone on it's own journey of apprehension.
I didn't love this book, maybe I'm getting old.