Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern-Review

Picked up this book because I could see that everyone was reading it and it was mentioned in my Entertainment Weekly magazine.  Plus the cover is amazing.  Here is the goodreads description:

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des RĂªves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

This book is a great story.. the descriptions of the circus are magical.  I just love how I really felt that I was in each circus tent.  I could see myself in the Ice Garden.  The love story was good as well.. but I wish that the author had went into it just a little bit more. My only other problem was that there was no magician's duel.  It made it sound like there was going to be, but then it was just one magician making a better tent then the other.

I will also admit that I got a little confused with the time frames in the book and eventually had to go back and start checking the dates on the beginnings of the chapters.  The telling of the story was told to us  by one character telling another character what happened. So sometimes that got confused because it kept jumping from past, present and future.  So I had to pay close attention.



I do think though that the book was very magical and worth reading if you are tired of the same old stories... girls loving boys, vampires and the supernatural, and similar books.   I love that we are taken on a great descriptive journeys through magic.  The author does very well with describing even the littlest details of the circus.. the fact that everything is white, black or red only.  And even the clock in the story is one of the most magical pieces.  I almost gave it 4 cats... but the slow start made me give it three cats!!  Enjoy this book!

If you haven't been to a Cirque De Soleil show you must go... that is what this book made me think of.  I've been to the Mystere show in Las Vegas and it was amazing and out there and magical like this book!  Here is a pic from the end of the show!






3 comments:

  1. There are very few books I read where I dont skip paragraphs and iften pages or chapters. This is not one of those books I read each word and savored it as ine might a caranel apple frim a truely marvelous circus. I didn't guess what was going to happen next and each page was an adventure nit thought of. Magical and worth every word.

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  2. Thanks for the Review...........I'm definitely going to check this out....

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  3. I know - an epic wizard's duel would have been awesome. I had to pay close attention to the dates, too. But after a while I had to give up because I was on my kindle and it was kind of hard to just go quickly back and see when stuff happened. I loved how the author made you feel like you were in the tent! I loved the Ice Garden, too. :) Lovely review. I love the pictures. I've never been to a Cirque De Soleil show but the combination of art and the circus reminds me of that, too.

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