BR: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern 3/5

“Stories have changed, my dear boy,” the man in the grey suit says, his voice almost imperceptibly sad. “There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognise for what they are. And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep overlapping and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there in no telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl. And is not the dragon the hero of his own story? Is not the wolf simply acting as a wolf should act? Though perhaps it is a singular wolf who goes to such lengths as to dress as a grandmother to toy with its prey.” - The Night Circus 

I missed a lot of things while reading this story and I am not sure if it is me or if I can blame it on the language barrier. Maybe my brain is not trained to comprehend books like The Night Circus in English... and that is the only reason I give this book three stars. Nevertheless, I tried to enjoy this book as much as possible and as soon as I started reading I heard the narrator's calm voice in my head; some mixture between Morgan Freeman and Neil deGrasse Tyson, which helped me to savour every word. 

There are books that I rush to read that I want to get through as soon as possible for two reasons; firstly, for finding out what happens next and secondly because my TBR list is just too big and I want to read as many books as possible in the little time. But the Night Circus, however, made me slow down and enjoy every single word. 

The story was rich, full of descriptions and detail. The text was filled with magic and the main idea of the book; a challenge and love that overcomes everything and finds the way felt so real like it was my own story. The book had a slow start but this story wasn't about the beginning or the end, this story was about the journey. This story was about time and the importance of some things happening in the right moment. The story was about destiny and how we are blind to it. How we fight it instead of going with the flow. Some books are about the main characters and who they are, what they think and how they see the world, but this book carried much deeper meaning, this story didn't have to be about Celia and Marco at all and in the same time, it had to be them. 

I usually try to introduce the main characters, but I feel like the circus itself is something we need to talk about. I was stunned by the tent ideas. Erin's imagination is like none other. The tents were so different from each other, starting with easy ones as; the fortune teller or acrobats or illusionist you could expect in the normal circus. And going all the way to impossible as cloud maze where you find yourself in the infinite sky climbing soft white clouds with paper birds flying around. The tent with lots of bottles where each holds a smell and feel of a different story. The tent that contains ice garden or the wishing tree filled with candles that light the wishes of hundreds of people. I cannot choose my favourite tent from the Circus; it is impossible.

Erin is an incredible writer who made me really sit down and relax. Her vocabulary wasn't difficult or complicated but the way she combined the words felt magical. The details she put on the pages were overwhelming and magnificent. Everything was connected. The words she picked for the beginning of the book were ones at the end and the whole book was a huge magic loop; the story that was told over and over. She created a maze of chapters that do not follow in the time sequence as you would expect and I realised that too late and missed out on some kind of time travel that I believe happened if you paid enough attention. 

Read this book. No matter what kind of books you like or do not like, read this book and open your imagination to the Night Circus.

... and if you do read the book, listen to this playlist for the full experience... 

Goodreads synopsis: 

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads:

Opens at Nightfall
Closes at Dawn

As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears.

Le Cirque des Rêves

The Circus of Dreams.

Now the circus is open.

Now you may enter.