Age Group:
Adult

Genre:
Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Supernatural

Awards:
Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Adult Literature (2012), ALA Alex Award (2012), The Reading List Genre Awards for Fantasy (2012)

Summary:
Two talented illusionists, Celia and Marco, are pitted against each other in a competition held within a mysterious night circus. Both trained since childhood for this final purpose, the two find themselves slowly drawn to each other as they struggle to understand the strangely beautiful magic that binds them.

My Thoughts:
Either fantasy is just not my genre, or this book is not very well done. Considering its 4 out of 5 rating on Goodreads, I’m thinking maybe the former.

After all the hype about this book, I really expected something amazing. Instead it felt so long and repetitive – and did I mention looooong!? It’s pretty rare for me to give a poor review and I really wanted to give this book a fair chance, but I felt super unsatisfied after finishing it. Firstly, there are way too many characters to keep track of. Secondly, character development is poor – probably because there are too many characters to develop! I also found myself annoyed at the author’s use of so many protaganists, lacking seemless transitions among so many points of view.

While the quality of the writing itself is excellent and the story intriguing, it just failed to reach me at a higher level. But like I said, maybe fantasy is just not my genre. If your into circuses and magicians, you will certainly find some value in Morgenstern’s descriptive prose and superior use of the English language.

Weigh in on The Night Circus today. Borrow a copy from your local Vaughan Library.