The Night Circus | Book Review

I know. I'm late to another party. This is yet another book that my wife had been insisting me to read but I kept putting it off for various reasons. Well, this year I decided to pick it up and yet again I'm so glad I did. I enjoyed this one as an audio book as well and I think it was the best way to read it. Here's my review.

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 Rêves, 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. (Premise from Goodreads)

Simply put, this book is magical. It reads like a fairy tale. I could just imagine this book being read to me as a child. The beautiful writing captivated me, the colorful cast of characters kept me coming back for more. The narrator is Jim Dale and it felt just like a grandfatherly figure was reading to me. I couldn't imagine a better narrator.

The only real issue I had with the book was put perfectly by Booktuber Emily Fox: It had been sold to me as a "duel of magic between magicians" but really the world duel is used veeeeery loosely. And that's really the only thing that bothered me. The book sold itself as duel between two magicians and one will die. If the premise was worded a bit differently this would have been a perfect book but you can't sell a story using a certain hook, but never deliver. 

That being said, I still loved this story. I loved all the characters and how they interacted. I loved the magic of the circus. I didn't mind that I didn't understand how it worked. In a certain series about a boy wizard that shall not be named, how the magic worked was explained quite well. In this book, nothing was explained but I didn't mind. This was a flowery, artsy book so the fact that the magic was mysterious just added to the appeal. 

The Night Circus is long, but it doesn't feel long. I never once stopped to look at how much I had left to go because I was so enthralled by it all. There were a ton of different characters but I never got anyone confused, which isn't always easy to do with a book with a plethora of characters. This was just a well written book, plain and simple. If you haven't read it yet, you should. 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern