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adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Stalking, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
So many layers. One of those books you need to reread just to catch everything you missed the first time through. A beautiful mystical world. With books, libraries, and cats.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I wish I loved this book. I was so annoyed with it and just wanted it to end. I found myself wanting to skip through all the description and get to the plot. The writing felt more pretentious than charming. It reminded me so much of Thistlefoot in its style and format and Mr. Penumbra in its plot. There was so much going on here-multiple stories to keep track of, so many symbols, jumps in time- I’d need to read it again multiple times to understand it all. The ending was confusing, frustrating, and sad, and a whole fever dream. The romance was.. sudden, confusing, and shallow. My favorite part of the whole thing was the Kitchen but then the bees were so creepy :(
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Grief
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book has depths I will probably never understand. It was often hard to follow. But it was captivating and left me feeling like I'd experienced something beautiful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Gun violence, Grief, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Blood
mysterious
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
So convoluted and dense, and yet I cannot tell you a single concrete meaningful thing about the world, story, or characters. A perfect example of style over substance -- and not even a great style at that, because a million run-ons without a comma in sight (except in splices, i.e. where they're not supposed to be, and god forbid any semicolons or em-dashes) and shallow imagery repeated ad nauseam do not constitute strong, profound writing. Especially when they're surrounded by weak verbs and dry statements; a lot of descriptions start with the classic grammatical expletive "there is/are." If these quirks were only in one section, it might have been fine, but all of the narrators sound virtually identical. Rather than consciously breaking grammatical customs to create some obvious effect or unique voice, then, it reads like unnecessary padding or honest errors.
I can't even comment in depth on the other elements, I feel like, because what little is there gets completely overpowered by the writing. I don't mind purple prose or stylistic experiments, but they need to be supplementing an actually compelling narrative and/or about 70% shorter. Here, though, if you take away the technical frills, you're left with 500 pages' worth of a bunch of scattered concepts that could have been interesting but don't amount to much in execution.
I wasn't super impressed by The Night Circus when I read it either, but I don't remember it being quite this insufferable, so maybe there's some sophomore slump effect going on. Either way, a pretty big disappointment, and irritated me so much at times I would have definitely thrown a physical copy. Honestly, I blame the editor -- if anyone did indeed edit this -- more than Morgenstern, because a good editor might have at least said, "Hey, so if you aren't going to follow a coherent plot or fully flesh out any of your characters, maybe you could at least punctuate your writing so it's readable?" Alas, clearly nothing of the sort happened, and the certain kind of reader I am suffers for it.
I can't even comment in depth on the other elements, I feel like, because what little is there gets completely overpowered by the writing. I don't mind purple prose or stylistic experiments, but they need to be supplementing an actually compelling narrative and/or about 70% shorter. Here, though, if you take away the technical frills, you're left with 500 pages' worth of a bunch of scattered concepts that could have been interesting but don't amount to much in execution.
I wasn't super impressed by The Night Circus when I read it either, but I don't remember it being quite this insufferable, so maybe there's some sophomore slump effect going on. Either way, a pretty big disappointment, and irritated me so much at times I would have definitely thrown a physical copy. Honestly, I blame the editor -- if anyone did indeed edit this -- more than Morgenstern, because a good editor might have at least said, "Hey, so if you aren't going to follow a coherent plot or fully flesh out any of your characters, maybe you could at least punctuate your writing so it's readable?" Alas, clearly nothing of the sort happened, and the certain kind of reader I am suffers for it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Pregnancy
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I really enjoyed the storytelling and world building.
Content Warnings
Minor: Gun violence, Violence
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
There’s something about Erin Morgenstern’s writing that makes you feel transported. It holds so much whimsy and magic, and while it can take a while to get into, it really holds onto you. I loved the story within a story within a story format and the idea that everything is connected. I’d like to reread this sometime with either a physical copy or an ebook, but having this be my first proper audiobook was a lovely experience.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual content
Minor: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Torture, Violence, Abandonment, Alcohol
Minor: Gun violence, Pregnancy