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 Reves,” 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.
-https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9361589-the-night-circus
Here is what I thought about this book: HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT
Everyone saying this book was so great and how it was amazing and magical and just so wonderful. I wanted to read this book for a while. I mean, check out that awesome sounding summary.
When the book first started, it was pretty dandy. The descriptions of the circus felt very magical and it got me interested.
But then it reached a certain point in the book where the magic started dying down. Maybe it was more like, I got used to the atmosphere the book was giving off. I was saying “ok….what else?”
I had to write an essay about this book. I had to write an in depth analysis of this book and it made me realize something. There wasn’t even…an antagonist????
Of course I had to put something down in the essay to at least say something yeah yeah but like…there literally isn’t one. And you may say, “what about Hector and Alexander??” Well, think about it.
What was the real conflict of this book? Those two “lovebirds” (if they can even be considered that) wanted to be together right? Ok great that’s jolly good but??? Are those guys really the antagonist? They put them together sure, but besides forcing them to play the game…? Not really. They actually pretty much did whatever they wanted besides that and to be honest, they could’ve totally kept playing this game.
As mentioned before, Marco’s and Celia’s love is absolute CRAP. Is this even real? Do people even like them being together?
There was not even a real battle between them. No real fight to see who is better. Hector and Alexander never made them go against each other at all. All they did was make some tents whoop de doo. It was just them falling in love which might have been fine if it wasn’t so FAKE.
The only characters I liked were Poppet, Widget and Bailey. Is it cause they’re young and have a legit personality? Who knows? Maybe cause they had some actual development.
The main problem I have this book is the extreme lack of development. In the book, it says 10 years have passed. Yeah ok maybe 10 years have passes but have 10 years passed for me? Nah not really. We only see what is put in the book. In the book, there is nothing much to gain on.
Not everyone is going to do a literary analysis on this book. Majority of readers will probably not get much out of this book.
I had to read this book 2 times in order to finish this essay and even then, I still felt that some things were unclear.
Overall, don’t bother with this book unless you’re patient af and willing to read this book 5+ times to get some sense.
2/5