First thought - I miss Spain so much. I had so much nostalgia reading this novel. Though Barcelona is not my favorite city in that beautiful country (sorry not sorry), I enjoyed feeling completely enveloped by the city as a setting for this book. It was mysterious, a little spooky at times, sad, and frustrating.

One of the things I noticed most about the book was the many one-liners and sayings that the author included. I loved them all. I noted down so many of them in my book journal - I want to keep them around for a long time. Zafon writes beautiful (and I'm sure it's even more poetic in Spanish).