In the introduction to the book, Zafón admits that this was initially written as a book for 12 & 13 year-olds, but hopes that adult audiences will like it as well. Hmm. Well, it wasn't bad, but I would've liked it a lot more if I was twelve.
It's a fun horror story, set in a small seaside town in the 1940's, and featuring the devil in the guise of an evil clown.
A lot of the elements of the plot seem to be there just for the sake of being spooky, and aren't ever explained or tied in to the story. I'm not necessarily objecting to that - after all, the supernatural is often unexplained - but it's an unusual technique.
I liked it, but it was nowhere near as good as Zafón's more recent books aimed at adults.

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After reading The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game, I was expecting more from this book that it somehow failed to deliver. However this being the author's debut work I guess it can be expected that it wouldn't be as good as his later novels. He certainly didn't do much in the way of character development in this one. Like his two adult novels, I found the ending to be ambiguous and rushed. I also thought the evil in the book was way too strong for a young adult novel, but I guess that's acceptable these days...

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A good adventure story, has a surprise ending.

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