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A review by bennysbooks
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
5.0
My aunt bought The Night Circus for me 10 years ago - it was her favourite book that year and she wanted to spread that love around. I started it almost immediately, but before I could finish more than a few chapters I experienced something that was as physically challenging as it was emotionally traumatic. I put the book down for a while, but every few years I would pick it up and try again. And each time I felt instantly sick; just looking at that cover transported me to one of the worst times of my life (it's actually kind of amazing how intensely our brains can make these connections). Until this time, that is (reading it digitally helped, I think - I didn't have to look at the cover art). And thank goodness for that, because I loved this book.
I'm not going to bother rating it, because my thoughts on what it is versus how I felt about it are at odds in the strangest ways, and I don't know how to decide on a number. But it just WORKED for me. It is s l o w . The plot and characters are almost secondary to both the atmosphere and the writing, which is typically something I hate, but is precisely what I loved about this. The atmosphere is also SO of its time. It's very Dresden Dolls-era Amanda Palmer meets twee, vintage scrapbooker gal, meets Romeo and Juliet (but not fully, don't worry), meets the Prestige?
Anyway, because I felt ill every time I saw the book , I had donated the copy from my Aunt years ago. I'm probably going to pre-order the new Waterstones paperback reprint. I'm a Morgenstern fan-boi, years late and right on time.
Edit: circling back nearly a year later to just give it 5 stars because I think about this book regularly, and with fondness.
I'm not going to bother rating it, because my thoughts on what it is versus how I felt about it are at odds in the strangest ways, and I don't know how to decide on a number. But it just WORKED for me. It is s l o w . The plot and characters are almost secondary to both the atmosphere and the writing, which is typically something I hate, but is precisely what I loved about this. The atmosphere is also SO of its time. It's very Dresden Dolls-era Amanda Palmer meets twee, vintage scrapbooker gal, meets Romeo and Juliet (but not fully, don't worry), meets the Prestige?
Anyway, because I felt ill every time I saw the book , I had donated the copy from my Aunt years ago. I'm probably going to pre-order the new Waterstones paperback reprint. I'm a Morgenstern fan-boi, years late and right on time.
Edit: circling back nearly a year later to just give it 5 stars because I think about this book regularly, and with fondness.