Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

22 reviews

laneys_library's review against another edition

challenging inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

So so beautiful! I can’t even describe how this book makes me feel. I have the extreme desire to experience the circus for myself. Usually I don’t prefer slow paced books but I loved every second of this! The authors writing is so gorgeous I feel as if I’m there, at the magical night circus. This book is so mysterious, mystical, and surreal. I beg you to read it if you haven’t already! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Alcohol

Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Murder, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Animal death, Blood, and Grief

Minor: Pregnancy

maeverose's review

dark inspiring mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.25

This is a bit of an essay…
This review is for my first re read of this book, which I originally gave 4 or 5 stars (can’t remember)

!!!This will have spoilers so skip if you haven’t read the book!!!

TL;DR: It didn’t hold up. I feel very similarly as I did for the starless sea. I love the setting with my whole heart, the writing and the atmosphere. Bailey’s chapters remain my favorite. But I was incredibly disappointed with the romance and the way the plot played out.

              The things I loved:

My favorite thing about this book is the circus itself. I wanna visit it so bad. Just the descriptions of the circus, the different foods, performances and tents. I need it to exist.

I also loved the atmospheric writing, the way she describes scents, sounds, etc makes it so immersive. 

Bailey’s storyline is my favorite. I love his friendship with Poppet and Widget and his journey to joining the circus himself.

           The things I didn’t like:

The main romance was so disappointing. For a book that’s marketed as a fantasy romance, I would’ve expected more of a focus on the romance. It’s not even a focus until the last third. They barely interact until then. For an opponents-to-lovers, I wanted tension between them before getting to the romance. What little tension there was came in too late and felt forced. It doesn’t have to be full-on enemies to lovers but it just doesn’t make sense to me that by the time they do finally get together, they get together with no hesitation, knowing they’re opponents. They shouldn’t have been that trusting of each other. I didn’t buy their love for each other. It was very instalove on Marco’s part, and instalove doesn’t work for me for multiple reasons. One being that it’s hard for me to buy his attraction to her when he doesn’t even know her. He fell for her years before they ever really spoke to each other, let alone got to know each other. I can’t buy that, personally. And from Celia’s perspective, she didn’t pay him any attention hardly until the end. It literally says in the book that to her he blended into the background before she found out he was her opponent. She didn’t care about him. It was also somewhat instalove for her after that point. Given that this book takes place over so many years, that would’ve suited a slow burn romance perfectly. Even though it takes years for them to get together, it’s not slow burn. The point of slow burn (imo) is the mutual tension and build up before they finally confess their feelings and get together. They need to interact.

Marco’s relationship with Isobel. He was kinda terrible to her. He fell for Celia the moment he saw her, but didn’t break up with Isobel until 15 years later… like yes Isobel could’ve taken the hint that he didn’t like her anymore but it was really sh*tty of him to not just tell her that it was over. He knew Isobel still loved him, or he wouldn’t have broken up with her at all. He just let that go on for 15 years…… another thing about their relationship that bothered me, is if you pay attention, towards the end Isobel says she was younger than Bailey when she met Marco. Bailey was 15 when Isobel met him, Marco was 19 when he met Isobel. So Isobel had to have been 14 at the oldest…. That makes me uncomfortable.

The competition. I liked that it wasn’t action heavy, but I felt like there was so little focus on the competition that it just felt a bit low stakes. Not even just that but it hardly felt like there was a competition at all.

          ———————————

I think I’ll still read future books by Erin Morgenstern, because I love her ideas so much, but so far both her books have been disappointing for me. I wish she would work on creating more fleshed out characters and plots, then she could easily be a favorite author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Murder, Animal death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Ableism, Confinement, Cursing, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Eating disorder

A sort of magical equivalent of terminal illness, stabbing, depression, an unhealthy romantic relationship (side romance), pedophilic relationship (14 & 19 when they get together, side romance)

zoeelora's review against another edition

dark inspiring mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Confinement, Death of parent, Gore, Infidelity, Murder, Infertility, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, and Suicide

micaelamariem's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What a magical story! I will never be able to wrap my head around how talented Erin is and how she can interweave stories and timelines and make the most beautiful story of them all. The writing itself is beautiful but so was the plot. I fell in love with the circus and wished I was there, finding new tents every night, as two magicians played a dangerous game and tested the limits and the rules. There was the perfect amount of sacrifice and loss and love and happiness to make the most bittersweet ending and this will definitely be a book I recommend to friends in the future. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Confinement, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, Classism, Death of parent, Grief, Suicide, Blood, and Child abuse

writewithapendragon's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Intensely atmospheric, enchanting language and setting. I didn’t buy into the main romance but I don’t know that it took away from my enjoyment of the book overall. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Suicide, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Confinement, Sexual content, Bullying, Death, Death of parent, and Emotional abuse

Romance/sexual content is all G rated/alluded to, no sexual content on the page though there is kissing.

gothmiku's review

mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment and Child abuse

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Confinement

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

March 5, 2012
March 26, 2014

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Mental illness

Moderate: Blood, Body shaming, Confinement, Bullying, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Suicide, Death, Alcoholism, Abandonment, Car accident, Dementia, Eating disorder, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, Grief, Infidelity, Misogyny, and Self harm

Minor: Sexual content, Animal death, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Sexism

paintedthree's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Looking back I did enjoy this book, but it is incredibly slow going. I had to pause reading it several times as the plot did not go anywhere until the second half of the book. The ending is good though, it ties everything together and the story feels complete. Unsure whether it balances out the incredibly slow pace, however.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Confinement, Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Minor: Abandonment

evieolive's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This is like one of my new favourite books omg I love it so much!!! The world is so beautiful, and the characters and themes are really complex, it is just so good!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, and Suicide

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, and Death of parent

juliette_95's review against another edition

It sounded like such a good premise but I can't get over how much child abuse is present in the first 44 pages, even if they are instantly healed after with magic. I'm glad that I did not buy this book because abuse should not be tolerated at all, end of story. So I am not comfortable with reading any further.  

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Confinement, Medical trauma, and Physical abuse