Customer Reviews

The Night Circus

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book was recommended to me by Amazon. After looking at the 5 or 6 ratings/reviews that raved about this book I bought it instantly. I feel somewhat torn in my overall opinion of the book. It was without a doubt a very unique idea and that is part of the reasons that i did like this book. The author does a fabulous job creating the circus and does in fact make you wish that it would come and visit your town! However, I found it increasingly frustrating as the book goes on. The dates for each chapter in the book seem to jump all over the place and I found it quite annoying to try and follow. This combined with so many questions surrounding the actual competition and some of the characters made it difficult for me to stay interested at certain points in the book. Sometimes when i picked it up i really enjoyed it and other times I could have set it right back down. I didn't particularly care for the ending.. I guess i was expecting more, but I absolutely adored the first chapter "Anticipation". After reading the entire book this is still my favourite part and the one thing keeping me from donating the book to the local library. I don't dislike the book but, but I don't think I will read it again (well, maybe the first chapter!! )

I do wish I had enjoyed it as much as everyone else on here seems to have.

I'm afraid I don't quite agree with most of the reviewers here. Granted, the book's concept is magical and the circus does seem compelling at first. But I got tired of the slow pace of developments, and the jumping around of the timeline, and ultimately the writing style (which seemed designed to describe things beautifully but not actually reveal much).

Somewhere around the middle of this book I realized I didn't really care what happened to the two main characters, and I lost interest in making the effort to piece together what was really going on. The whole premise that was ruling their lives seemed a bit pathetic and I ended up feeling that the ending didn't really matter to me.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is certainly creating some buzz lately. So, I was excited to receive a copy and see what all the talk was about.

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

Le Cirque des Réves
(The Circus of Dreams)
Opens at Nightfall
Closes at Dawn."

But what visitors don't know is that the circus is a venue for a game. A game between two enigmatic magicians (although they are much more than simple magicians) of indeterminate age and otherworldly skills. Each has chosen a player and trained them for many years. And now that the circus is open, the game begins. The young players, Celia and Marco, are not even sure of the rules, how a winner will be dictated or what the playing should even consist of. And so we follow the circus, the game and the lives of everyone touched by the magic.

Where Morgenstern absolutely excels is in imagination. She has conjured up fanciful, magical places and times. Her prose are rich and lush, painting very vivid images. I often found myself rereading these passages and imagining what one of the attractions would be like. For the attractions at the Cirque des Réves are unlike any other. Each tent contains an unfathomable wonder that you may have only dreamed of.

I loved the following imagery - books as both vehicle and voyage.

"When she opens her eyes, they are standing on the quarterdeck of a ship in the middle of the ocean. Only the ship is made of books, it's sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink. They stand silently together as the ship drifts toward the endless horizon."

Where the book fell from a five to a four for me was in the pacing and character development. The first half of the book moved a little too slow for me. I did end up putting it down for a few days. When I picked it back up, the second half moved much faster, with more action and consequences happening.

Although Celia and Marco are the main protagonists, there are many, many others integral to The Night Circus. Celia and Marco remained for me attractions - I never became truly invested in their love story or struggles, despite the fairy tale feeling of it all. I found myself drawn to many of the other players, especially Bailey. His character is more tangible and I was able to believe him in him more. This could simply reflect the pragmatic nature of this reader.

The Night Circus is a intriguing, inventive foray into a magical world that, deep down, every one of us wishes existed. A very strong debut novel. And a bit of a magical time for Morgenstern - movie rights to The Night Circus have been sold to Summit Entertainment - who also brought you the Twilight movies. It will interesting to see what movie magic can do to reproduce The Night Circus.

I am blown away with your creative imagination, Erin !!!!!!!! I LOVED this book and have recommended it to SO many who also LOVE it!!!!! EXCELLENT and HIGHLY recommended!

An intoxicating blend of historical fiction and fantasy, "The Night Circus" is one of the most impressive literary debuts I have read recently, marking the advent of an important new voice in fantasy and mainstream literary fiction; Erin Morgenstern. It is a boldly imaginative work encompassing fantasy, romance and historical fiction by someone who is both a great storyteller and an exceptional prose stylist. Compellingly readable and impossible to put down, Morgenstern takes readers on a whirlwind journey spanning across two continents and decades of time within the tents of the mysterious and magical Le Cirque de Reves with a most compelling cast of characters ranging from its eccentric owner Chandresh Christoph Levevre to its most devoted fan and clockmaker Friedrick Stefan Thiessen, and last, but not least, the contortionist, fortune-teller and magicians of the circus itself. This is an epic tale of love and a titanic battle of wits between two young illusionists, Celia Bowen and Marco Alasdair, engaged in a relentless competition of magic overseen by their enigmatic, mercurial masters; a game in which only one of them can survive, a game witnessed by the entire circus and its fans, as they conjure exceptional feats of magic, and a game which defines their lives and threatens their unexpected, quite passionate, love for each other. A game which is the latest in a series of competitions that have lasted for decades, between Celia's father, Hector Bowen, the magician Prospero the Enchanter, and the elusive, enigmatic man in the grey suit. With "The Night Circus", Morgenstern has written a tale as captivating and mesmerizing as any written by the likes of Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, China Mieville, and Haruki Murakami; it is indeed a work of genius which will be compared favorably with theirs as an instant classic of fantasy and mainstream literature.

This believable magical tale kept me entertained for hours. I didn't give it 5 stars because I initially had problems trying to keep the order of events sorted out. Read and remember the dates at the beginning of each chapter or you are rapidly going to get confused. I know I did! Other than that the novel drew me into a mystical world where fabrics change colour on a whim, birds transform into hats and two lonely people find happiness. The text is rich in imagery and the characters are touchingly real. A lovely read.

The book started out great - all the time I was reading I was thinking what a great movie it would make. Then about 3/4 of the way through I lost track of what was happening and at he end I wasn't sure if I even understood the book's story at all. It seemed a little to "out there" for me. The visuals are great, I think that alone makes the book worth reading but the love story was a little weak.

A beautifully written story about the circus. I could see, taste and smell parts of this novel. Really enjoyed this one.

My book group loved this book and wish it would be made into a movie. We enjoyed every scene and happening. We thought the author was very imaginative and the story well written.

This is a rare book. It took me on an unexpected journey: from thinking that I was going to put it down, to being drawn further and further in by the bewitching descriptions of this improbable circus, and finally — viscerally — to being overwhelmed by the beauty and imaginative weight of the ending.

It lingers. I did not quite struggle through the first third of the book, but I wasn't as compelled to continue it as I would have thought. Past the introduction, the beginnings of the tapestry are woven for you on a scale that is impossible to grasp on a first read-through. For some readers, I suspect they will stop here, frustrated and disappointed, and move on to books less patient, less layered, and less demanding.

The demands are simple, but increasingly unfamiliar in today's literary world: "Just read," the book asks, "have patience, absorb the details, surrender your hurry." You cannot skim, because on each page that initially seems to contain nothing but enchanting descriptions, pieces of the puzzle are being carefully assembled for you on a board you cannot yet see, for a purpose that remains deliberately beyond your reach.

Somewhere toward the book's final third, you become aware of a certain momentum gathering. Do not let yourself reach this point in the book if you do not have time to spend with it. Where the book's beginning was patient, its latter half accelerates almost imperceptibly, going from tame to tumultuous so that you hardly notice how it has happened.

One of the many acts described as part of the circus are a series of performers who, seeming still as statues on their platforms, are nevertheless moving, changing, and while it may be difficult to muster the patience to observe the shifts, they are surprising and deeply satisfying as you recognize them.

I made the mistake of reaching the final third of the book yesterday night. I was unable to stop reading until I had finished the book, and sleep was elusive even then.

Brisker and brighter than Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and more fascinating and imaginative than a show of Cirque du Soleil's, The Night Circus is a complicated delight.

I cannot stop thinking about it, and that is a wonderful feeling.