Review: The Night Circus

With most books I read I have a clear and concise opinion about them; I either like it or I don’t and in this case it’s different.  The Night Circus starts out with a very compelling prologue, which makes the reader think that from the start they will be drawn into this book and they will not be able to put it down, but instead after the amazing prologue the story starts out slowly. It takes about halfway through the book for things to get exciting, for the competition between the two players, Celia & Marco to start. After the competition starts everything comes together. All the different POVs (points of view) and all the different characters come together and it starts to make sense.  Now it may sound like I didn’t really enjoy the book, but in truth I enjoyed it very much!  The imagery and details used to describe the places and circus tents in this book were amazing.  The Night Circus was very enchanting and although I, personally didn’t connect with the characters like I usually do while reading I still wanted to be there, in the story, experiencing this magical, spellbinding circus.  I wanted to visit the circus tents in which Celia and Marco created, I wanted to feel the magic that the visitors to the circus did.  This is one of the most imaginative books that I have ever read.   The circus tents in the story contain such wonders as a labyrinth in which rooms grow and appear, a pool of tears, into which you can release your sorrows, a cloud maze which allows the one who enters the tent to feel as if they are flying in the clouds, and many more tents that are just as fascinating.  This story has a life of its own, just as the circus takes a life of its own.

When this book came out many compared it to Twilight and the Harry Potter Series, but besides the two characters being madly in love and the fact that they are both magicians that is where the comparison between The Night Circus and these other series end. Having read Twilight and all of the Harry Potter books I can say that they are not alike. While Twilight and Harry Potter are full of action and adventure The Night Circus seems to focus more on the imagery and details. Although I did thoroughly enjoy The Night Circus I was a little disappointed that in the descriptions it describes the competition between Marco & Celia as “fierce” when throughout the story the competition remains mostly calm and nothing fierce seems to happen.  Aside from this I found the story an enjoyable read and I hope to make it a permanent book in my personal library.

My rating for The Night Circus 4 out of 5 palm trees