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Libri Mortis #1
Flüsternde Schatten
397 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2006
4 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Peter Schwindt
47 books6 followersPeter Schwindt ist ein deutscher Journalist und Schriftsteller.
Geboren wurde er 1964 in Bonn. Er studierte Germanistik, Komparatistik und Theaterwissenschaften in Berlin, brach seine Uni-Karriere aber nach vierzehn Semestern und einem Schein erfolgreich ab. Ungebrochen aber blieb seine Leidenschaft für Film, Theater und Literatur. In den folgenden Jahren arbeitete er unter anderem als Software-Redakteur, Lektor für Comiczeitschriften und Drehbuchautor.
2000 verfasste er für den WDR die Hörspielserie Justin Time, die er drei Jahre später zu einem fünfbändigen Romanprojekt um den Zeitreisenden Justin Time ausbaute. Standen hier noch fantastische Elemente im Vordergrund, präsentiert sich Peter Schwindt mit seiner libri mortis-Trilogie als genauer Beobachter menschlicher Abgründe und spielt sein literarisches Können auf dem Gebiet des Mystery-Psycho-Thrillers voll aus.
Schwindt lebt mit Frau und Tochter in der Nähe von Frankfurt.
Geboren wurde er 1964 in Bonn. Er studierte Germanistik, Komparatistik und Theaterwissenschaften in Berlin, brach seine Uni-Karriere aber nach vierzehn Semestern und einem Schein erfolgreich ab. Ungebrochen aber blieb seine Leidenschaft für Film, Theater und Literatur. In den folgenden Jahren arbeitete er unter anderem als Software-Redakteur, Lektor für Comiczeitschriften und Drehbuchautor.
2000 verfasste er für den WDR die Hörspielserie Justin Time, die er drei Jahre später zu einem fünfbändigen Romanprojekt um den Zeitreisenden Justin Time ausbaute. Standen hier noch fantastische Elemente im Vordergrund, präsentiert sich Peter Schwindt mit seiner libri mortis-Trilogie als genauer Beobachter menschlicher Abgründe und spielt sein literarisches Können auf dem Gebiet des Mystery-Psycho-Thrillers voll aus.
Schwindt lebt mit Frau und Tochter in der Nähe von Frankfurt.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 9, 2012
Ein UNGLAUBLICHES BUCH!
Ich glaube kein Buch hat es bisher geschafft mich auf diese Weise zu verschrecken. Während mancher Passagen hat mein Herz so laut geklopft, dass ich Angst hatte jeden Moment würde es stoppen. Man konnte die Pariser Unterwelt beinahe riechen.
Unglaublich, unheimlich, unersetzbar.
Ich glaube kein Buch hat es bisher geschafft mich auf diese Weise zu verschrecken. Während mancher Passagen hat mein Herz so laut geklopft, dass ich Angst hatte jeden Moment würde es stoppen. Man konnte die Pariser Unterwelt beinahe riechen.
Unglaublich, unheimlich, unersetzbar.
August 19, 2020
Das Buch hat mich überrascht. Ich habe nicht viel erwartet, habe eigentlich mit einem typischen YA-Roman gerechnet. Aber irgendwie hat es mich sehr gepackt und stereotyp ist das Buch überhaupt nicht. Die Geschichte ist originell und spannend. Ich mag die Figuren sehr gerne, auch wenn die Protagonistin Rosalie mich am Anfang einiges an Mühe gekostet hat, bis ich sie dann lieb gewann. Aber ihr Freund Ambrose ist definitiv der Sympathieträger. Das Buch erzählt sehr nah aus Rosalies Leben und es gefällt mir, dass es eigentlich ein ganz normales Leben ist, mit Höhen und Tiefen, Problemen und guten Zeiten. Das wirkt sehr authentisch.
Die Geschichte nimmt zur Mitte hin richtig Fahrt auf und endet natürlich mit einem Cliffhanger. Ich werde auf jeden Fall weiterlesen und bin doch jetzt sehr gehyped. Mir ist nämlich immer noch nicht ganz klar, ob das Buch jetzt ein Thriller mit Fantasy-Elementen ist, oder vielleicht doch nur ein Krimi? Oder etwas ganz anderes :-D
Die Geschichte nimmt zur Mitte hin richtig Fahrt auf und endet natürlich mit einem Cliffhanger. Ich werde auf jeden Fall weiterlesen und bin doch jetzt sehr gehyped. Mir ist nämlich immer noch nicht ganz klar, ob das Buch jetzt ein Thriller mit Fantasy-Elementen ist, oder vielleicht doch nur ein Krimi? Oder etwas ganz anderes :-D
February 23, 2021
As with a lot of older YA books this might have not been the absolute worst when it was written, but it didn’t age well at all. The general concept of this is actually quite cool and there were some ideas that I liked, but they were never taken far enough to actually be unique enough to make this book worthwhile for me. Maybe that will happen in the sequels, but I doubt it, and I will never find out, because I’m not going to continue this just for the slight chance that something interesting might happen.
This book started out extremely slow, basically nothing seemed to happen until well into the second half of it, there were so many scenes that seemed repetitive and unnecessary, so I was really bored. Honestly a lot of things could have been cut out, and what was left should have been combined with the sequel into one book. And a lot of the things that did happen I had read before, there’s nothing that makes this stand out from other YA published around the same time.
I hated the main character, she was extremely judgmental towards basically everyone. I really wanted to love her, I want more punk teenagers in my books, but she truly wasn’t it. She seemed to think she was super special and a lot better than everyone else, but in the end she was the same dull and annoying character I’ve seen a million times.
Some of the language this used to describe people was super uncomfortable as well. There were a lot of weird comments about people’s bodies or looks when they didn’t fit the narrator’s/main character’s beauty standard, and several times things that Rosalie was doing were described as “like a blind person”, even in situations where it made zero sense. For example there was something about her throwing things out of a box without any system to it like a blind person. At this point I wasn’t even sure anymore if the author knows what the word blind means. But even if those quotes did make sense, it’s still super insensitive to compare someone’s behavior to a minority they aren’t a part of.
The few diverse characters that we have are mainly defined by whatever makes them “different”, and those things were stressed to a point that made me super uncomfortable. The two (very minor) gay side characters were painted in a very cliche way, and it had that kind of tone where the main character seems to want to be applauded for not being homophobic, so she stresses how she has no problem with gay people, while still treating them like some crazy out-there concept. Some scenes gave me similar vibes to how the black character was handled as well, but with the eight reviews this book has on goodreads I couldn’t find any own-voices reviews on that.
Talking about Ambrose, one thing I liked about the book at first was that it seemed to have a completely platonic friendship between a boy and a girl. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, because later on it did turn into the start of a romance, and I was upset about it, to say the least.
Another thing that made this uncomfortable to read was how this book seemed to almost be obsessed with pedophilia. The amount of times people brought up the possibility of adults Rosalie mentioned being interested in her in a sexual way was a bit worrisome to me, then there’s another character who sells sexual photos of little boys, and is also said to get off on that himself. Which just adds a whole new level of problematic to this whole thing, having the pedophile in a very straight book be into boys. Also, now that I think about it, one of the two minor gay characters did make some comment about Rosalie being so beautiful he would consider leaving his boyfriend for her. None of that was ever made into an actual discussion around the subject, it was just thrown into the book for no reason (none I could find at least).
There was also this specific quote towards the beginning of the book, that still makes me feel sick thinking about it. I don’t hate myself enough to go back and check the exact wording of it, but it was something about puberty making Rosalie’s father realize she wasn’t a “neutrum” but a girl with her own wishes and needs, and it felt like it was almost supposed to be funny, but it’s so many levels of disgusting. First of all if a parent ever saw a child of any age as a “neutrum” that would be a huge problem, because that’s super dehumanizing. Also, children have wishes and needs before they hit puberty. And correlating puberty with gender like that rubs me the wrong way too.
In the end this book was definitely not worth the read for me, and especially after writing this review, during which I discovered a number of things that bothered me about the story that I hadn’t recognized at first, I’m left feeling extremely uncomfortable with what I’ve just read.
This book started out extremely slow, basically nothing seemed to happen until well into the second half of it, there were so many scenes that seemed repetitive and unnecessary, so I was really bored. Honestly a lot of things could have been cut out, and what was left should have been combined with the sequel into one book. And a lot of the things that did happen I had read before, there’s nothing that makes this stand out from other YA published around the same time.
I hated the main character, she was extremely judgmental towards basically everyone. I really wanted to love her, I want more punk teenagers in my books, but she truly wasn’t it. She seemed to think she was super special and a lot better than everyone else, but in the end she was the same dull and annoying character I’ve seen a million times.
Some of the language this used to describe people was super uncomfortable as well. There were a lot of weird comments about people’s bodies or looks when they didn’t fit the narrator’s/main character’s beauty standard, and several times things that Rosalie was doing were described as “like a blind person”, even in situations where it made zero sense. For example there was something about her throwing things out of a box without any system to it like a blind person. At this point I wasn’t even sure anymore if the author knows what the word blind means. But even if those quotes did make sense, it’s still super insensitive to compare someone’s behavior to a minority they aren’t a part of.
The few diverse characters that we have are mainly defined by whatever makes them “different”, and those things were stressed to a point that made me super uncomfortable. The two (very minor) gay side characters were painted in a very cliche way, and it had that kind of tone where the main character seems to want to be applauded for not being homophobic, so she stresses how she has no problem with gay people, while still treating them like some crazy out-there concept. Some scenes gave me similar vibes to how the black character was handled as well, but with the eight reviews this book has on goodreads I couldn’t find any own-voices reviews on that.
Talking about Ambrose, one thing I liked about the book at first was that it seemed to have a completely platonic friendship between a boy and a girl. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, because later on it did turn into the start of a romance, and I was upset about it, to say the least.
Another thing that made this uncomfortable to read was how this book seemed to almost be obsessed with pedophilia. The amount of times people brought up the possibility of adults Rosalie mentioned being interested in her in a sexual way was a bit worrisome to me, then there’s another character who sells sexual photos of little boys, and is also said to get off on that himself. Which just adds a whole new level of problematic to this whole thing, having the pedophile in a very straight book be into boys. Also, now that I think about it, one of the two minor gay characters did make some comment about Rosalie being so beautiful he would consider leaving his boyfriend for her. None of that was ever made into an actual discussion around the subject, it was just thrown into the book for no reason (none I could find at least).
There was also this specific quote towards the beginning of the book, that still makes me feel sick thinking about it. I don’t hate myself enough to go back and check the exact wording of it, but it was something about puberty making Rosalie’s father realize she wasn’t a “neutrum” but a girl with her own wishes and needs, and it felt like it was almost supposed to be funny, but it’s so many levels of disgusting. First of all if a parent ever saw a child of any age as a “neutrum” that would be a huge problem, because that’s super dehumanizing. Also, children have wishes and needs before they hit puberty. And correlating puberty with gender like that rubs me the wrong way too.
In the end this book was definitely not worth the read for me, and especially after writing this review, during which I discovered a number of things that bothered me about the story that I hadn’t recognized at first, I’m left feeling extremely uncomfortable with what I’ve just read.
September 27, 2021
Ein gelungener Auftakt zu einer Reihe angesiedelt irgendwo zwischen Jugendbuch und Mysterythriller. Bin nun doch gespannt, wie's weitergeht...
September 12, 2017
Kind of dark but enchanting series, loved to read the Libri Mortis books when I was a teenager, would be interesing to read again and see how I like them now.
February 28, 2020
Ich las das Buch vor einigen Jahren und wollte es unbedingt noch ein mal lesen, da ich eine spannende, gute Geschichte in Erinnerung hatte. Für eine durchschnittliche 13 oder 14 Jährige ist dieses Buch bestimmt unglaublich spannend, angsteinflößend und gut geschrieben. Letzteres ist nach all diesen Jahren teilweiße immer noch so und ich kann nichts schlechtes über dieses Buch sagen, da es einfach zur simplen Unterhaltung dient. Außerdem lernt man einiges über historische Ereignisse, von denen ich denke, dass sie auch wirklich stimmen, jedoch kann ich das nicht sagen, da ich mich nicht mit der Pariser Historik beschäftige.
Dieses Buch war eine gute Abwechslung, ich habe vor mir den zweiten Teil zu kaufen, da die Geschichte doch wirklich interessant ist und viele Fragen aufwirft.
Update: Habe dieses Buch ein zweites mal gelesen und kann wieder nichts schlechtes darüber sagen. Komischerweise hatte ich das Verlangen diese Reihe noch ein mal zu lesen, obwohl viele andere ungelesene Bücher in meinem Regel darauf warten, gelesen zu werden.
Dieses Buch war eine gute Abwechslung, ich habe vor mir den zweiten Teil zu kaufen, da die Geschichte doch wirklich interessant ist und viele Fragen aufwirft.
Update: Habe dieses Buch ein zweites mal gelesen und kann wieder nichts schlechtes darüber sagen. Komischerweise hatte ich das Verlangen diese Reihe noch ein mal zu lesen, obwohl viele andere ungelesene Bücher in meinem Regel darauf warten, gelesen zu werden.
October 23, 2021
Das Buch hat mir gut gefallen. Es ist sehr schön geschrieben, aber etwas langatmig. Wenn man den 1. Teil durch hat, hat man nicht das zwingende Bedürfnis den 2. Teil sofort zu lesen, aber man möchte schon wissen, wie es weiter geht. Alles in allem ein schönes Buch.
April 15, 2015
Uneventful. Two stars is generous.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews