Week 7: Night Circus


I didn’t really like the Night Circus. I won’t go so far as to say I hated it, but it was a much bigger disappointment than I could’ve expected a book like this to be. I wasn’t a fan of the characterization, or more like the lack of it. We’re given some really wonderful, beautiful descriptions of magical workings, but it feels like the author never thought to apply her skills to the characters themselves. I don’t know who Marco, Celia, Bailey, Poppet or Widget are. They do things, but I don’t know why they do them. I couldn’t tell you which of them were extroverts or introverts, or how to even describe their personalities, or why Celia and Marco are a perfect romantic fit for each other.  I would’ve been happier at least with some basic stereotypical traits, because that would’ve given me something to feel about the characters. As it stands, I know the most about Bailey. He likes his tree, he dislikes sheep, and he likes the circus. Him having these three preferences is the most information I have about any character’s personality. The clockmaker’s inventions were really interesting, but the author didn’t delve much into his motivations or background before killing him off. What makes me saddest is that this book had a ton of promise, (even disregarding the fact that there was never any reason for our main characters to end their game, since there weren’t any consequences to letting it continue.) I wanted so much to see the tension-filled competitiveness of Celia and Marco slowly turn into friendship. I wanted to see them, haunted by the inhumanity of their mentors, turn on that establishment and upend the entire competition. Instead they meandered towards the good ending without much issue at all. It just feels like none of the conflict and gravitas that I read on the back of the book actually made it into the final product, and I’m not willing to excuse it by calling it part of the Victorian sensibility. While I’d be really interested to read this author’s later books to see how she’s evolved, I feel like Night Circus was too flawed for me to recommend to anybody. It’s a worthy addition to spiritual education novels, being more immediately young adult than Harry Potter was and more blended into the human world, but it’s a book I’d rather see rewritten by somebody else.

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