Book Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: ★★★★★

 

This book took me a while to read, not because it's not good, but because I've been too distracted by Diablo 3 lately. Dragging a book over a extended period of time might be okay with certain books, but not so much this one because the story is so interwove and time frames are of utter importance. Time loops and laps back on itself as the story unfolds. I couldn't remember what year something had happened in the book and had to constantly go back to check. Good thing in the end everything came together, a very good read.

The story starts by introducing a circus, opening at dusk and closing at dawn, arriving in town. No character or time frame introduced. Then it goes back to a time before the circus, the start of a competition of magic and endurance that will be the beginning of a big rolling snow ball. The circus is the stage for the competition between a girl, Celia Bowen and a boy, Marco Alisdair, set up by their instructors, to see who the better magician is. There are little rules for the playing field, little do the competitors know that only one victor can be left standing by the end of the game. The competition goes on for years, involving more and more people. The competitors themselves becomes more entwined with each other than they or their instructors had planned. But the competition is bound by magic; it must go on until there is a victor.

I loved the style of the writing as much as I loved the story. It is whimsical and descriptive, never rushed. It fits the story perfectly and I wouldn't want it to be told any other way. Because there are so many people involved, each character is like a piece of the puzzle, making you wonder how they will fit in the grand scheme of things. The timeline jumps from year to year. One chapter might take you back a year, then the next will take you forward a decade. This is why reading this while extremely distracted by Diablo 3 confused me a bit. I would read a chapter, put down the book for almost a week before picking it back up again, and be completely confused because I don't remember what happened before or when it had happened. Towards the end of the book I would go back to the chapter before to compare the year the events took place (each chapter starts with a title and a date) since it started to go back and forth between 2 years quite frequently. It is not really a bad thing. The blurred timeline created almost a dreamlike effect, which I believe is exactly what the author was going for.

I loved the ending. I loved the way the Celia resolved the competition; I love the role the twins and Bailey played in the future of the circus; I pitied Hector even though he brought that fate upon himself; I especially loved it when all the pieces of the puzzle rested in their rightful places. The book is like a dream, charming and magical, just like the circus itself.

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