The Night Circus

Practical info

Author: Erin Morgenstern
Genres: Fiction, fantasy/romance
Sub-genres: Low-fantasy
Publication year: 2011
Edition: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-099-57029-5

Personal info

Why I picked it up: I had heard a lot about it, about how amazing it is and everything. And then I saw it in the store.
Status: Finished
Progress: 490/490 pages
Started: 5-7-2023
Finished: 13-8-2023
Rating: 2/5 stars
Reread count: 0
Overall opinion: BOY do I have things to say. If you love this book, leave now.

It was a drag, why did I bother finishing it? I guess because I hoped it would get good, but it didn't.

There are a lot of u explained things. I guess the ending was fine, but a lot of characters seem to have been forgotten about.

It was long and slow and so little happening except when something does happen suddenly, it’s just… ugh. And the parts where something actually happened weren’t even that good and were often confusing and out of nowhere.

Magical circus shenanigans—someone gets hit by a train—magical performance—the creator is going crazy—magical children—someone gets a knife thrown in his chest—magical experiences— the circus is going to die and the main two characters are kind of dead?

I know the whole point of the book is mostly the world and the atmosphere, right? But it really isn’t that spectacular to me. Like, “It’s enchanting and magical and mysterious and black-and-white*.*” Yeah, I got that the first ten times you said it. And when other things are described, sometimes I have no idea what I’m meant to be imagining here, because it’s so vague.

Atmospheric fantasy is not my thing. I will not be reading any more of it.

2 stars instead of 1 because I can recognise that the prose is good. But I would rather have an interesting plot with bland prose than this.