Mommy, am I cult?

This starts as a romance with an European juvenile flair. The protagonist is a teenage boy that runs from he boarding school from time to time to wander through Barcelona, until he falls in love with Marina, a beautiful 16 year old blonde pale girl (now that I think about it, what's up with blonde pale girls and this book?) who lives in an decaying aristocratic house with her father. The boy keeps getting away from the boarding school to meet her, until Marina shows him a mysterious widow visiting a cryptic grave at the cemetery.

That's when they start to be tormented by apparitions who stinks like rotten flesh. But this doesn't derail to a silly slasher-book. On the contrary, we have a backstory to explain all the persecution. I found that explanation beautiful AND messed up. So if you want a sophisticated romance/horror YA, this is the book for you.

But not exactly the book for me. I heard a lot about [a:Carlos Ruiz Zafón|815|Carlos Ruiz Zafón|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1444199853p2/815.jpg]'s excellence in [b:The Shadow of the Wind|1232|The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)|Carlos Ruiz Zafón|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344545047s/1232.jpg|3209783], but I didn't fall in love with his style here. The action scenes felt a little bit "telly" and dry to me. Sometimes, I just he would "show" me more. But I'll still read [b:The Shadow of the Wind|1232|The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)|Carlos Ruiz Zafón|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344545047s/1232.jpg|3209783], as it's supposedly a love letter to books and almost a must-read for Latins.