THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern

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.

So this story follows both Celia and Marco ever since childhood, being picked by Celia's father and his opponent as proxies for their "competition/game". You never know the rules, you never know what exactly this game is to prove....besides that in the end only one will remain alive.

I personally really liked this book....but surprisingly it was a lot to do with the layout of the book. It has multiple chapters of 2nd person narrative, where they say "you", and express what you are doing in terms of the circus and going to see it. It adds another layer of understanding of the circus and just how exuberant it is and the scale at which it maintains itself going from place to place. 

I also liked how it took points of view from multiple characters, and even from different timelines. Although at first it kind of bothered me because let's be honest....when you bounce back and forth between storylines, it takes a lot of setup and time for them to all eventually come together. But in the end, it again added more dimension to the story.

Although I did enjoy this book and I did rate it highly....there's still a bit that I didn't care for about it.

For one, the romance although intense and enjoyable....took forever to develop and then once they both formally understood who they were to each other, it just took off. Like so much so that they were willing to die for each other or run away from the circus and the game together when...not only a few chapters before they were still just looking at each other and not speaking. I just felt like it escalated quickly once it was out in the open it kind of confused me because it just felt so abrupt.

Also, I didn't particularly care for the relationship between Celia and her father. There's history there concerning her mother and how their relationship was built...but in my opinion, Celia needed to be more aggressive. I wanted her to get angry but she never did she always just sighed and pushed everything away rather than actually facing it head-on. I mean....her father is a screwed up human being.

There's also the obscurity of the game and competition in general...I mean I have a theory....but I think that may be analyzing it too much. It's like...the whole story is based on this game and yet you never actually know the parameters. It just irks me in a certain way.

Anyways, all in all, I did like this book. I enjoyed reading it and I really liked the journey it took me on. But it wasn't the greatest I've read.

I give it a 3.5/5.