The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

After reading The Shadow of the Wind, I immediately started on The Prisoner of Heaven because it was a gift from a friend (and the reason why I read The Shadow of the Wind). I was super excited because The Shadow of the Wind was fantastic so I had unreasonably high hopes for the book. While this wasn't as good as The Shadow of the Wind, it was still fantastic.

In The Shadow of the Wind, we are introduced to Fermin, who's this really smooth-talking and super amusing character who becomes a best friend to the protagonist, Daniel. In The Prisoner of Heaven, someone from Fermin's past comes back and the story behind Fermin comes to light.

Much like the previous novel, the story toggles between past and present to give the reader a bird's eye view of how things connect to each other. The characters from the previous novel are still there, and I really, really enjoyed reading about how their lives have been since the ending of the first book.

However, I felt that the climax was not as exciting as the first book. While it was satisfying, it didn't have the same intensity of reveal that The Shadow of the Wind had. Plus the cemetery of forgotten books didn't have as big a role as I would like. But looking at Book 2 (which I didn't manage to get my hands on and skipped), it seems like reading that would have enhanced the reading experience The Prisoner of Heaven.

Did I like the book?

Of course!

Am I going to read The Prisoner of Heaven once I find it?

Definitely (and I suspect that it will, like the other two books, drag me in).

But is this as good as The Shadow of the Wind?

Nope, not really. I would still recommend it heartily and if it were any other book I suspect I would be fawning over it a lot more, but I've got the first book on my mind and it sadly does not compare.

(This is still a 5 star book, don't get me wrong. I couldn't put it down once I started but I'm still comparing it to the first book and that was way too awesome.)