Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus

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.
Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

Comment: This is a book from 2011-2012 and at the time it was quite the hype among fans of fiction and I have several friends who liked it. Still, I also heard a less than stellar opinion here and there which put me off a little and I delayed my interest. This year, I saw this in a bookstore and finally got it.

In this magical story we meet Celia and Marco who, at a whim of fate and two men, are cast as adversaries on a game to prove who will be more clever and brighter in the arts of magic.

Throughout the late 1800s and the beginning of 1900s, these two face off in a circus that everyone agrees is the best ever, where everything feels even more special and where the experiences are never the same. However, the game will need to end one day but how? And who will know which player is the best, especially when for Celia and Marco the endgame shouldn't be anything else but everlasting love?

This story started really confusing. I struggled a little to understand what was the goal here and you know something? For me, this was the second most disappointing aspect of this book: I never really understood wat the point of all this was! The characters spend their whole lives doing amazing things and the point of this all is so... sub par to any expectation I had, I really feel a little annoyed.

The thing I'd change the most is the end of this book. It doesn't end badly, and on one POV it does make sense things followed the path they did. However, it's terribly anti climatic in my opinion. It's like those exercises of creative writing, when after countless adventures we get to the end and the author claims it was a dream. I mean, what was the point, after all, and in this book the end is a mix of random details which didn't have to be put in the page the way they did. I think part of it is shock factor, so that the reader can feel amazed at the audacity, of the dramatics of the whole situation. And part is maybe the impossibility of getting out of a tricky situation. I just think it was so frustrating to see things end the way they did.

Nevertheless, I can't give a bad grade to this story because the ideas surrounding the circus and how it works and al the countless amazing elements. The author exceeded herself in the creation of this world and the characters in it. Still, what a pity most of them were always so difficult to read. They said this and that but I don't think I ever empathized with any of them. Their actions often felt so... unbending. It had to be one way or not at all. It felt a little too harsh for such a magical reality.

What I liked best was definitely how the circus was put into motion and all the little details that made it something to wonder about. There was always a slight whimsical feel to it, but for me not always successfully conveyed because the characters acted like they knew things and the reader wasn't privy to them. I can understand why this keeps up with the mystery and the possibility of what's to come but... it can also be reductive to what readers gain from the whole thing. I ended up thinking the end was a little bittersweet.

All in all, I understand why this is great for many readers and I do share some of that wow factor. However, it wasn't as brilliant in plot as it is in execution and detail. The author has a new book planned to be published next year. I feel curious about it but I don't think it will be a priority for me. As for this one, surprising it certainly is...

Grade: 7/10