Written by Erin Morgenstern
Review written by Diana Iozzia
“The Night Circus” is one of the most famous fantasy novels of the past 10 years. Published in 2011, this novel about a competition between magicians is told in the most glorious setting. The Circus of Dreams travels mysteriously by a magical train and is only open after midnight. This novel includes many story elements, different plot lines, and many eccentric characters, while centering around the fight to the death magical competition.
Celia Bowman was raised by her selfish and uncaring father, Hector, who is better known as Prospero onstage. He has planned to host a competition between him and his rival, A.H., who has been raising an orphan, Marco, to dual Celia once they are of an appropriate age and skill level. Celia and Marco have begun to fall in love and will do anything to safe each other from this fate. In addition, we meet many other characters. The creator and the owner of the circus is Mr. Chandresh Lefevre, a reclusive yet luxurious host. In partnering with many other characters, he and they continue to have this spectacular circus. Lastly, there is another lead storyline, following Bailey, a local teen, and twin performers, Poppet and Widget. Poppet and Widget befriend Bailey and teach him how to perform some illusions. As his storyline progresses, we start to understand his relevance and his importance to the circus.
Easily the most interesting part of this book is the circus itself. The many interesting illusions, the tents, the exhibits, the types of performers and performances. This is a magical book that excels, just based on the magic. The bits before each chapter explaining about the circus was great and absolutely launched you right into the story. The quotes by characters about the circus were fun to read and opulent. I loved learning about the Ice Room, the Cloud Maze, Chandresh’s mansion, the statue performers, and more.
To be honest, I felt that the romance really ruined the book for me. Celia and Marco meet, because Marco helps create the circus tents and acts, while Celia uses her magic to transport the circus and fuel it. So, naturally, they would bump into teach other. They become aware that they are each other’s rival, but they do not wish to enter the competition, knowing that it will leave one of them dead and the other alive. Their romance feels very convenient and forced, without any interesting characteristics or flaws for the other to reflect or repel. I feel that in a romance novel, you should have something that the characters don’t have in common. A fear, a friendship, a hobby, a plan. They just sync up in an unnatural way. The romance and dialogue felt very generic, with many cheesy lines. The characters seemed to fall in love at first sight, which perhaps is not enough for me to justify their need to possibly kill each other. They don’t feel so passionate and so starstruck that I worry for them. The story ends in a very obvious way, but I felt that there should have been more. This book felt too short. There were many characters I would have loved to learn about more, especially Chandresh and Isobel. Isobel was the first love of Marco, who joined the circus as a fortune teller to be with him. We hardly saw any of her, so it was hard to consider her an important or even present character.
An important question that is hardly answered is: Who are the true villains? We can acknowledge that those who agree to enter young magicians are villainous and apathetic to those who enter, showing a true lack of love. But then, the conclusion led me to wonder if selfishness out of love could create a villain? If you are willing to give up everything for love and throw it upon someone who doesn’t really know what to expect, aren’t you responsible and selfish for just throwing away your responsibility? Although this story was for adults, I felt the ultimate decisions that Celia and Marco made to survive deeply impacted those around them in negative ways. I would be so happy to debate this, if anyone wants to reach out on Instagram!
Lastly, this should be a miniseries or just a book series. There was so much more that needed to be incorporated, and because it wasn’t, the book felt confusing and empty. I rate this about 3.5 out of 5.
I think that others may enjoy this story more than I did. Most importantly, I had extremely high expectations to read this book. I think you’d enjoy this book if you loved “The Prestige”, “Tuck Everlasting” and “Station Eleven”, for those simpler magical yet mysterious stories.
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