The Night Circus - a book of love and magic

The book I didn’t intentionally buy at the very first time. I was just browsing around to find birthday gift for a friend and my eyes catched this 20% discounted one. The cover looked intriguing. I checked quickly on www.goodreads.com.  Rated 3.99 out of 5 starts. It convinced me that it might be a good one.

With all my laziness withregard to reading, this book got me. I tend to give up book at its 3^rd chapter, where I start to lose interest over too much blab la bla and not enough tension or engaging stories to keep me reading.  Sometimes, I just read the first 2 chapters that got me interesting set up and then jump to the last 2 chapters to see what’s the ending. I know it’s a crime. But it’s also writer’s crime not providing me good plot connector in between.

What about this book? What made this lazy reader finish it up?

"I would have written you, myself, if I could put down in words everything I want to say to you. A sea of ink would not be enough.' 'But you built me dreams instead"

Somehow the book won me through its simple and thin chapter. Each chapter consists of only few pages. It feels light to finish one chapter everyday before bedtime.  I didn’t feel like being forced to eat the whole chunk of story. Instead, it small bite of a well wrapped chapter and I can still catch up another bite at different day. That’s what keep me going.

Plot wise, it is in fact a quite simple stories. The book follows a a little girl Celia Bowen and boy Marco  who was set up for a big competition against each other once they grew up. Both are thought magic to compete against each other at the infamous Night Circus, also called Le Cirque des Reves.  Their instructor also serve as their parental figures ( Hector choose her daughter Celia and Alexander picked Marco – a boy from orphanage). These poor little kids are bound through invisible ring. Planted on their finger when they were 6^th. The game is winner lives and looser dies.

Erin Morgensten has done her job describing the painful life Celia has gone through.  Her dad who never gets enough of her. She’s in constant pressure to control the mind over body as her dad keeps pushing her limit. The characters eventually fall in love, involved in love triangle and this, well, complicates the competition.

Reading this book, its detail narration transport us to glamourous, magical but also playful at the same time. It gives me vivid illustration about the life in the black and white tents that contains rooms of dream, illusions, and cloud maze. Though I wish I could have bigger portion of Celia-Marco love tension.  From realizing they are actually each other’s opponent vs when romance slipped off into their life. It’s kind of too subtle. After all, we always wait for a though drama. Especially us, girls… idea of love conquers it all will never fail us weep and smile.