The Night Circus

Great book, if only because the fantasy world takes one away from everyday worries and troubles. Morgenstern's rich description takes you right into the heart of the circus, making you feel right in it. I also like the tone of the book, the length of the sentences are always just about right, not too long or short. ( )

I picked this book up because it began as a NaNoWriMo novel. I didn't like it because it ended up like a NaNoWriMo novel. It was as if this book were written entirely using NaNo methods - turning off the internal editor, letting your mind wander, using full names (really, I thought of NaNo every time I read about "Chandresh Christophe Lefevre" (sp?) and "the man in the gray suit" - those are classic NaNo tricks to pad word count), using lots of description and telling, jumping from scene to scene and time to time, as if no one ever organized the story after it was drafted. I was very surprised to learn that this was published by a major publishing house, because it did not appear that this book was edited. Throughout the book, there were echos (one sentence in particular had the word attention in it something like 3 or 4 times), poorly written sentences, bad metaphors and analogies, that sort of thing.

It might not have been quite so much a disappointment if the blurb had been accurate. The book description describes an epic battle between wizards/magicians, a epic battle to the death - an epic game pitting one against the other (see how annoying that "epic" echo is?). This book is not thrilling in any sense of the word. It is slow and plodding, full of rich description (which, for me, takes away what I like about reading - I don't have to have every detail of every piece of clothing explained to me, I want to let my imagination fill in the gaps). Towards the end of the book, I caught myself saying, literally, oh, isn't this book over YET?!

If you like extremely detailed description, this book might be for you. If you are looking for a thrilling story, well-developed characters and a compelling plot, skip this one. ( )

This book is so different in a time when it feels everything has been done already. It's easy when you're young to really believe in magic and be swept up in a story about it. The Night Circus is one of those that somehow manages to give magic that an adult can fall into as deeply as a child can. At the same time, it doesn't hold its punches like some children's books do. It's pretty tragic at times. It sometimes has the enchantment of a fairytale, and other times it's as disturbing as an episode of The Twilight Zone. I know that this is a book I won't forget. I don't think it is for everyone, but I do recommend it. ( )

This book is so different in a time when it feels everything has been done already. It's easy when you're young to really believe in magic and be swept up in a story about it. The Night Circus is one of those that somehow manages to give magic that an adult can fall into as deeply as a child can. At the same time, it doesn't hold its punches like some children's books do. It's pretty tragic at times. It sometimes has the enchantment of a fairytale, and other times it's as disturbing as an episode of The Twilight Zone. I know that this is a book I won't forget. I don't think it is for everyone, but I do recommend it. ( )

Such high hopes for this book! I really, really wanted to like it but I made it 1/4 of the way through and nothing was really happening. Sure, people did things but the story itself wasn't pushing forward. There is lots of beautiful language, the book is atmospheric, but it was like a pretty cake with mediocre filling. Basically, meh. ( )