Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4/5 stars
Premise – (4/5) I’ve been wanting to read The Shadow of the Wind for a while now, but haven’t gotten to it yet. So when I saw a different YA novel by Zafon on the library shelf, I was really excited. I figured I could get a feel for his writing. The premise itself was also pretty intriguing – creepy cemetery visits, characters gone missing, spooky underground tunnels. Marina seemed to have all the fixings of a gothic mystery, and I was excited!
Characters – (3.5/5) This book was filled with shady characters and strong personalities, some of whom fell into fairly typical gothic tropes, but that wasn’t always bad. Starting with our narrator, on one hand, Oscar was an interesting narrator, but on the other, I wish his personality had come through stronger. Sometimes he seemed a bit bland, especially outside his attachment to Marina and German. I liked German a lot, and I liked Marina too, but I definitely saw the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope coming through in her character. I’ve seen arguments that her character deconstructs this trope, but I’m not sure I’d agree…the jury’s still out. While I enjoyed her mysterious, enigmatic quality, I thought she was a bit too stereotypical. The rest of the cast was colorful and interesting. Popular tropes that showed up include the ruined beauty, the mad scientist, the cynical police inspector, but I think all those characters worked for this book. They weren’t all super complex, but again, I think that it worked for the story.
Plot – (4.5/5) Lots of plot twists! Some I definitely saw coming more than others, and again, some were definitely genre tropes. I thought the plot fit together really well logically, and the twists were done well. The timeline was a bit confusing at times, but everything was explained very nicely. The pieces of the puzzle fit together, although you didn’t always figure it out until later. There was a lot of action woven in with second-hand storytelling, which was sometimes paced a little weirdly, but balanced out pretty well. I also thought the past and present stories were blended well.
World – (3.5/5) This is largely related to the writing, but I’ll try to tackle it on its own. I’ve never been to Barcelona, but it felt real enough to me. The world-building was a blend of historical and science fiction elements, which made for an interesting mix. I thought it was pretty well done though.
Writing – (4/5) I went back and forth on this quite a bit, but ultimately went for the higher rating because I wanted to give Zafon the benefit of the doubt when it comes to translation. On one hand, the writing was beautiful. Like, I was very spellbound and the writing definitely drew me in. The descriptions were excellent and the writing style was really pretty. On the other hand, there was a lot of telling instead of showing, and that dragged sometimes. I know this book’s original language was Spanish, and as a classicist, I understand completely that a translation can really affect the original piece of literature. That’s what made this particular rating so tricky, but in the end, the writing was compelling and beautiful enough to merit a 4 from me!
Overall – (3.9/5) Marina played on a lot of gothic/horror tropes, but most of them worked really well for the novel. While our main characters could have been fleshed out a bit more, the intricacies of the plot and beautiful writing made up for it. Very much a classic gothic tale, complete with mysterious love interest, long-ago tragedy, and haunting prose. I’m excited to read more of Zafon, and will definitely pick up The Shadow of the Wind soon!
Trigger warnings for: body horror, mention of self-harm, mention of suicide