The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

First off, I love this book. I've read it twice now (as I do all books) and liked it even better the second time. I kept thinking, "If I had to be stuck in time somewhere, I'd be okay with being there." I could see the circus beautifully inside my head, but at the same time bits of it were fuzzy which gave it that magical feeling. 

Morgenstern painted a wonderful picture inside my head of the venue. The black and white tents, fascinating performances and performers, and even describing the wonderful smells wafting between the tents. The descriptions are so well written, if I close my eyes I can go there in my mind. Walking amongst the tents with a glossy caramel apple in my hand, reading the carefully hung signs that give only hints of what is to be found inside each tent. The world in which the author takes you is beautiful and wondrous, my bowler off to you Ms. Morgenstern. 

I will admit though, the story is a bit slow moving. For being nearly four-hundred pages you can easily fit the summary into one or two paragraphs. The first time I read the book through I put it down often because I'd tire of some scene or another and wonder when that section would end. The description and content of each scene is glorious, there is just too much of it at times. 

My other complaint of the book is jumping around through time frames. You read one chapter and get a good sense of the characters and what their purposes are and what is going on with the backstory. Then in the next chapter, it is a year later or ten years earlier and you are given no ruler to measure this time jump by. Only dropped hints such as "I was sad when he died last year" are there to give you a marker as to when it is during the story. If it continued to be foreword moving, I would not have a problem with it. However, sometimes a chapter will hop into the backstory some ten years prior to the main story in the previous chapter and you feel off kilter. It distracted from the story in general.

Mind you, despite these little complaints, the story is truly wonderful. If you are the kind of person that enjoys a fast paced, get things done and move on kind of story this book probably would not be for you. But if you want to wander through a magical world filled with interesting characters and a strange if sometimes confusing plot, this is the book for you. I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I'd give the story four bowler hats out of five.