Genre: Fantasy
Published: September 13, 2011
Pages: 512 (Mass Market Paperback)
Ages: 14+
Synopsis
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 Reves," 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.
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.
Review
The Night Circus was my book clubs selection for July and I was lucky enough to find a copy of it at the thrift store the day after the selection was made. Considering the storyline, though, I could almost believe the book was put there just for me.
It has been a while since I have found myself getting lost in a book the way I did with The Night Circus. The story is evocative and the details so vivid that I felt transported into the midst of the circus, the smell of popcorn and caramel surrounding me. If someone created a circus that was even half as amazing as Le Cirque des Reves, I would want to visit it at least a dozen times.
This is a very detail rich book, and it's totally necessary. The descriptions pull you in so you feel like you're inside the ice forest or watching Celia turn books into doves. I've never had freshly made caramel corn before, but The Night Circus made me want to pop a batch of popcorn and drizzle warm caramel on top of it. Actually there were several times while reading that I found myself wanting a Night Circus tie-in cookbook because the food sounds just as amazing as all the food served at Hogwarts.
The one issue I had with the book is that it occasionally time jumps. One chapter will leap forward a few years and then the next leaps back, and that kind of pulled me out of the story a little and I'd have to go back a few pages to figure out what time I was in. The jumps were more frequent early on in the book.
Overall I'd give The Night Circus 5 out of 5 stars because it made me want so many things from the story to be real. I'd definitely recommend it to fantasy fans everywhere and I would love to read more from Erin Morgenstern. - Katie
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About the Author
Erin Morgenstern is a writer and a multimedia artist, who describes all her work as "fairy tales in one way or another." She grew up in Marshfield, Massachusetts. She currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts with two very fluffy cats.
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