A GOTHIC TALE FOR ALL AGES.
In May 1980, fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai vanishes from his boarding school in Baecelona. For seven days and nights, no-one knows his whereabouts . . .
His story begins when he meets the mysterious Marina. She takes him to a graveyard where they witness a macabre ritual. On the last Sunday of every month, a coach appears. A woman shrouded in nlack descends, holding a single red rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the emblem of a black butterfly . . .
When Oscar and Marina follow her, they begin a journey that takes them to the heart of a forgotten, post war Barcelona. Beneath the streets, a dark secret lies waiting . . .
Look what I finally finished! I think it took me about a week, maybe longer, but again, if it takes me a really long time to finish reading a book then you know that book probably wasn't amazing.
This is the first book I have read by this author, and I can't say I'm too impressed. I quite liked the overall plot - the mystery behind the tale of Eva and Mijail Kolvenik (I hope I'm spelling that correctly), the friendship built between Marina and Oscar because I'm not too fond of their romantic relationship so I'm going to pretend it wasn't there as it wasn't a huge part of the story, and all the lives affected by these four people. It just wasn't that interesting, though. It didn't have much description, the characters weren't easy to connect to because of the lack of description, and there was more then one whole chapter that I feel like you could have taken out of the book and it wouldn't have made a dent into the impact of the story.
This part is just a personal pet peeve of mine, and it's something that only bothers me because of the personal problem I am about to explain, but I still feel like it contributed towards my rating and how I felt about this book - I've always been an under confident female, I've never been a pretty one, throughout my school years and even now nobody has ever been interested in me (which I'm more or less fine with). So, having every female in this book to be someone who is either amazingly beautiful that you catch your breath, or to have them completly insane, wasn't something that I appreciated. Maybe this was added to give the book that sense of being a fairytale it kept throughout the entire thing, but I'd have liked it if there was a woman who wasn't very pretty but was still an important and cared for person in the story. This is also a reason why I don't usually go for books where a male is the narrator, not that there's anything wrong with males being a narrator, but because I'm a very insecure person and it would just make me uncomfortable with the way they often describe and view women, so if you're one of those people too, I'd give this a book a miss. Edit: I'm not talking about male or female writers, just the charecter who is narrating the book. There are many male narrated books, such as The Maze Runner (we'll just ignore the comments from others who care more about the attractiveness of the first girl we encountered, rather then who she was or how she ended up there), it's just not usually the thing I aim to find, I prefer female narrations much more. I hope it's clear enough, not too good with words!
It also wasn't believable. It was a bunch of hybrid dolls killing people, essentially, and I was more frightened by the amount of madness and insanity in this book simply because that exists then I was about the main part of the story.
I did enjoy the very gothic feel of the book, though, and also how he took a different approach to Spain. I've always known it as the modern, hot country where people go for holidays and that's about it. I can appreciate the different perspective taken here.
I gave it a three instead of a lower star rating on Goodreads purely because of the last hundred pages. I feel like that was the story and the real adventure began. Despite some small snips of crucial information you'd need from the first two hundred pages, it didn't really need to be there. Marina would have worked best as a short story. Plus, the name for the book didn't really make sense until the last twenty pages, either.
I'm not saying don't give this book a try, though, but it's not one of those books you just have to read.
Thank you for reading!
