Book Club September Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

First off, I’ll start by saying I loved this book. And it’s a good thing, since I wanted my birthday month book to be a good one! I chose this book as it had been on my list for a while, ever since a friend highly recommended it. Let’s face it, I’m a sucker for some magic, so I thought it was sure to be a winner.

The Night Circus gave me heaps of magic, as well as an ill-fated love story, an interesting structure, plenty of mystery, and a host of intriguing characters. What’s not to love?

The book follows Marco and Celia, two strangers from different backgrounds, who are fated to meet and compete in a strange game of magic. The stakes are not quite clear, the rules are ambiguous, and no-one is quite sure how to win. So needless to say, the book keeps you guessing until the very end as to what is going on and why, but it also manages to keep you gripped all the way through. So, lets dive into the details.

The Good Stuff

One thing I really loved about this book was the intertwining of two timelines moving at different paces and following seemingly different plots. Although it was quite hard to follow at first, once they began to converge it became clearer what was happening and how they related. Erin Morgenstern executed this beautifully, converging the plots and weaving the two timelines together near to the end of the book in such a clever way that kept me turning pages to see what would happen next.

The characters have got to be next. I think every character in this book had such flair and intrigue, it would be hard to choose a favourite. For me a special shout out goes to Tsukiko, the mysterious contortionist that you suspect from the second she is introduced is more than she seems. From the way she turns up out of the blue with an impressive show of skill, to the random bits of wisdom she drops throughout the book, you can tell she’s hiding something. But I have to say, I liked her a little bit less after her meddling at the end of the book. I also liked that the love story between Celia and Marco managed to nicely complement the other elements of the book, without becoming the sole focus. It was a slow burn that gave us just enough and left us wanting more.

The magic element of this book took a different form from my usual fantasy reads, which I found to be very interesting. Blending magic and illusions was a clever way for Morgenstern to bring magic into the everyday world. And the way the Night Circus was described definitely helps you to feel like you’re there. I had no trouble in this book visualising the weird and wonderful circus, its eclectic acts, and its die hard fans.

One Small Point

Whilst I loved the use of two timelines, it was a bit complicated at the start to keep up with the switching between the two. There were so many dates given and I often had to flip back to the start of previous chapters to see whether we were in the future or the past, which interrupted the flow a little for the first half of the book.

That said, for me that doesn’t qualify as a major inconvenience or point of criticism for the book as it was very worth it for the effect that Morgenstern managed to create. I especially felt the use of different plots for the different timelines did a good job of keeping the two distinct, so I honestly can’t fault this book in any way.

Rating

Kay – Overall it was an intriguing and magical read that delivered what it promised. I’d recommend it for fantasy lovers and other book folk alike, therefore it gets a 5/5.

CY - The slow burn had me craving for any small interaction between the two characters, and the interwoven storylines were so well done that I have to give it a 5/5.

Have you read this book? Did you love it as much as we did? Let us know in the comments your thoughts and your ratings, we are dying to hear them.

If you haven’t read it, go and get yourself a copy now! What are you waiting for?