The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern Review

Hi ForeverBookers, 

This will be my last review before Christmas I expect, as it’s my birthday tomorrow and I won’t read much between then and Christmas, so I’ll say “Happy Christmas” to everyone now! I hope you all have a fantastic day and get lots of nice presents!

I’ve just finished “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern and I surprisingly really enjoyed it. It's been the year of me enjoying standalone books in 2019! I started “The Night Circus” a couple of years ago as a buddyread but my buddy and I had a disagreement so I gave up on it. When I gave up on it the first time I wasn’t very far into it, maybe a quarter of the way and it’s a slow book so not much had happened by that point. It’s a very enchanting book and the characters do suck you in, though. “The Night Circus” is a fantasy book as it has magical elements but it’s set in our world. We see London and New York for instance, as well as other places, although the places talked about are set mainly within the circus. It’s more of a character based story than a plot based story, as the characters are what you’re reading for. Without them, there wouldn’t be a plot!

4 Stars!

I read “The Night Circus” for a few readathons again. They were: 

* The Cardcaptor-a-thon - The Shadow Card - A book where you’re unsure of the main character’s intentions - All of the characters in “The Night Circus” are a mystery. They don’t show their true colours until the end of the book (#14)

* Reading Rivalry - Author Highlight - I don’t think I’ve read an author highlight before but one of the authors highlighted this month is Erin Morgenstern so I covered this easily by reading “The Night Circus!”

* FFS - This month Fiction Feud Society is playing Ticket To Ride where we basically need to read books that link in one way or another. “The Night Circus” is my first read of the month, so the next book I’ll have to choose will either be a book either by Erin Morgenstern, with a black cover/spine, or a mysterious plot or something that relates to something to do with “The Night Circus.” It could also be a magical book in some way or a romance as they are two prevalent themes in “The Night Circus.

* POPSUGAR 2019 Reading Challenge - A debut novel - The Night Circus was Erin Morgenstern’s first novel. Her second, The Starless Sea released this year. I hope to read that next year!

* Owls Magical Readathon - Winter edition - Read a book featuring a competition - “The Night Circus” does this through a competition between two of the main characters.

“The Night Circus” has a few abusive elements; such as cutting fingers for magic. It also has a breaking an entering scene, which I go into a little more detail of below.  

Spoilers Below

“The circus arrives without warning. 

No announcements procede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It was simply there, when yesterday it was not.” 

This is the opening to the story. I found it very whimsical, as if “The Night Circus” was a fairytale. It’s telling us that the circus just arrives. The circus is the main character of “The Night Circus,” I’d say. It’s an object that doesn’t speak but it is personified in about every chapter of the book.

“The circus knows them and appreciates them.” 

is an example of this. It appreciates “the Reveurs,” which are the fans of the circus. It knows them because it’s a magical circus. One of the Reveurs is Bailey, or so he becomes. He’s a main character that leaves his family, all for the circus. 

“Bailey finds that he does, actually, want to go inside. Not just because of the dare but because he is curious. Dreadfully, hopelessly curious. And beyond proving himself to Caroline and her gang, beneath the curiosity, there is that need to return tugging at him.”

This is the first time we see Bailey at about 50 pages into the book. Caroline is his older sister, who comes across as a bit of a bully, although she’s not really in much of the book. She and her friends dare her little brother to go into the circus,  where no one is meant to step until it opens, as it’s forbidden. If anyone does try and is caught bad things are said to happen to them. 

“It’s an impossible dare and all of them know it.”

Of course, Bailey does venture in but gets lost. He meets a young girl there. We don’t know her name at the time, but later it’s confirmed that she’s called Penelope, or Poppet as she’s known throughout the book. She has a twin brother called Walter or Widget. She helps Bailey to get out of the Circus. When the circus disappears a few days later, Bailey is stuck wondering just who the girl that helped him was. He’s determined to discover her identity when the circus comes back, which it always does.

“He ached to go back almost the moment he walked away,” shows Bailey’s desperation to return to the Night Circus or “Le Cirque des Rêves.” He loved all of the opportunities the circus opened up for him. He feels like he is someone worthy when at the circus on his own or with Poppet and Widget, together or separately but without it he’s just an ordinary farm boy. It’s almost like the circus offers him a new, better life away from his family. His dad wants him to go to Harvard, which he doesn’t want. Does he go? You’ll have to read to find out... 

There’s a little romance between Poppet and Bailey but the most romance is between Celia and Marco, who other than the circus itself are the main characters of “The Night Circus.” They are set against each other in a duel, that is never specifically named. The duel is about keeping the circus running. Whoever wins it will be the winner and whoever loses will die. Of course, these two characters fall head over heels in love with each other. There are a few obstacles, other than the duel, like Isobel who becomes Marco’s girlfriend at the beginning of “The Night Circus,” before he meets Celia. 

“You’re a magician,” she says.

“I don’t think anyone has actually called me that before,” Marco responds. 

Isobel laughs again, and she is still laughing when he leans closer and kisses her...

To passersby on the darkened London street, they look like nothing out of the ordinary, only young lovers kissing in the rain.”

This is at the end of Isobel and Marco’s first meeting. This book has instalove in it so if you can’t bare that, then I don’t recommend it. However, if you don’t mind it or if you like istalove, like I do then, it’s great. Although the instalove does hit hard, it develops into something true and sweet in every instance in “The Night Circus.” At least it did for me so if you can bare the beginnings of it, it becomes something more than a plot point. 

“It has to kill one of us.” 

“What?”

“That’s how this ends,” she says. “The one who survives is the victor. The winner lives, the loser dies. That’s how this ends.”

Celia and Marco discover the only way to end the battle between them is to kill each other. The winner will be the one who survives. Who will win? Who will survive? You’ll need to read to find out.

There are minor characters too, such as Chandresh. He doesn’t do anything but start and run the circus, along with Marco. I was questioning who was evil and who was good multiple times while reading “The Night Circus,” because as I said in the Readathons section of this review the characters are all mysterious. What one reader sees as a negative, another will see as a positive. Another perplexing character is Tsukiko, an Asian contortionist that just turns up at the circus. Why is she there? What is her purpose? You’ll have to read to find out. 

Overall then, I really enjoyed “The Night Circus.” I thought is was very whimsical and full of magic. If anything I would have taken away some of the scenes with Chandresh, as I found these to be most boring. Also the first third of the book was slow but after we meet Poppet and Widget, the book took on a new life for me. I think Poppet, Bailey, Celia and Marco were my favourite characters. The romances, which are great, happen between these characters so that may have been why! I maybe would have liked a little more of this but I was happy with what we got. The chapters are so short that it really doesn’t take long to read the book. It made it compelling to have short chapters as I was always excited to see what came next in this unpredictable story. It took me a while to read because I was compiling notes to write this review. I’m therefore giving “The Night Circus” 4 Stars! 

Have you read “The Night Circus?” What are your thoughts on it? Leave them in the comments below...

My next review will probably be coming in January, although my best of 2019 list will be coming before then, so watch out for that!