Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus
Author:  Erin Morgenstern
Published:  2011
Publisher:  Doubleday Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Ltd.
Pages: 387
Genre:  Fiction
ISBN 9780385671712
Source:  I borrowed this book.

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead."

My Review:

Reputed to be comparable to Harry Potter in popularity and sales, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is  a delight of imagery that stimulates the senses and transports the reader to the magical world of The Night Circus.  Erin Morgenstern's prose flows over the pages, grasping the readers' attention and imagination as every circus can but The Night Circus is even more.  It is a magical escape, like a dream land, full of mystical performances, still life performers, acrobats, contortionists, fortune tellers and so much more.  To attend this circus once, is the beginning of a yearning to return time and again, as every reader is sure to attest.  This is one book that is definitely re-readable.

Meet the Author:

Erin Morgenstern is a writer and a multimedia artist, who describes all her work as 'fairy tales in one way or another'. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts with her husband. About Erin. The long, first person version: I write. Fantastical, fairy tale-esque things with magic and mystery and tea. I started querying literary agents in June of 2009. After working with interested agents and revising my manuscript (twice) I signed with my agent in May of 2010. Then I spent a summer in the Revisionland Hotel, and in September of 2010, THE NIGHT CIRCUS sold to Random House. The sound you are hearing is my head spinning, still. My fiction tends to be location-driven. Nocturnal circuses, subterranean libraries, townhouses dressed up as pirate ships. I got tired of living in Alice’s Wonderland and decided to build some of my own. I write 10-sentence flash fiction pieces inspired by photographs that are posted to the blog every Friday. They are fondly known as flax-golden tales. I paint. Mostly acrylic-based mixed-media abstract illustration. Which means painting with acrylic paint and adding anything I can get to stick, and it’d be abstract if it were not so illustrative and illustration were it not so abstract. I paint Wonderland-y things and teacups and pigs with wings. I spent large amounts of the last few years painting a black & white tarot deck. I finished painting it in early 2010. You can purchase a beautiful limited edition deck of the Major Arcana. (Well, you could. It’s sold out now, but they might turn up on tarot trading sites.) I keep an art-based blog on LiveJournal. I am lousy at updating it. I read a lot. I drink absurd amounts of red wine and even more absurd amounts of tea. I collect jewelry made from old keys. I rather like the internet (even Twitter!), so I will be polishing and decorating this corner of it for the foreseeable future. (from the Random House website)

The following is a reading by the author from her novel, The Night Circus.