"The Midnight Palace" Book Review

The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"In the heart of Calcutta lurks a dark mystery. . . .

"Set in Calcutta in the 1930s, The Midnight Palace begins on a dark night when an English lieutenant fights to save newborn twins Ben and Sheere from an unthinkable threat. Despite monsoon-force rains and terrible danger lurking around every street corner, the young lieutenant manages to get them to safety, but not without losing his own life. . . .

"Years later, on the eve of Ben and Sheere’s sixteenth birthday, the mysterious threat reenters their lives. This time, it may be impossible to escape. With the help of their brave friends, the twins will have to take a stand against the terror that watches them in the shadows of the night—and face the most frightening creature in the history of the City of Palaces."

This was good, but "The Prince of Mist" was better as far as Mr. Carlos Ruiz Zafon's young adult fiction is concerned.

*SPOILERS* Read at your own discretion.

I feel as if the characters had different traits at each end of the book. Take for instance, Ian: in the beginning of the story he's regarded as a scared and wimpy person, the last person to take a risk "and therefore more likely to survive". But by the end of the book, he's the first to try to suck snake venom out of someone's arm, the one the group of friends (called the Chowdar Society) calls upon to talk to Ben, and the one who is trying to become a doctor, which is not for the weak of heart or stomach. And then the Aryami Bose character was the most cowardly of all. She's mentioned at the beginning of the book as this powerful sorcerous in the heart of the Black City part of Calcutta, but when it came time to prove her worth against this monster, she runs, leaving one twin all by himself at an orphanage.

Another problem I had, was when Jawahal wants to take over his own daughter's body to keep existing. "Your lips will be my lips." Ewwww. That whole part was very incestuous. And then in the beginning of the book, Ben is flirting with Sheere. I realize he didn't know that they were twins, but still kind of disturbing on the part of the author. About as bad as George Lucas, come to think of it.

I feel like some parts could have been explained better. Like the part about how Jawahal couldn't kill Ben outright and had to trick him into doing it. And why Jawahal was so powerful. He was like an insane ghost that attached itself to a machine???

Very confused. But I know this one is for kids. I still enjoyed it, just not as fond of it as his other work. Looking forward to more "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" stories and "The Watcher in the Shadows" which comes out in Spring 2013. It looks good!


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