The Night Circus - Reading Recommendation

I couldn't put this down. It was fascinating, capivating, mysterious and funny.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.

The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads:

Opens at Nightfall

Closes at Dawn

As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears.

Le Cirque des Rêves

The Circus of Dreams.

Now the circus is open.

Now you may enter.

The Night Circus: Erin Morgenstern

It's escapist, it's fantasy, it's dreamlike, but the luscious descriptions of the character, textures and feeling through the book almost make you yearn for the Circus to exist. Two magicians are training apprentices, and have set the circus as a playing field for the apprentices, in a duel that, unknown to the duellists is one to the death.

There are wonderful characters; Celia and Marco the apprentices, Alexander and Hector the magicians, with a second storyline of Bailey, Poppet and Widget; characters who live within the circus, and in Baileys case escape to the circus. I can't believe this is a debut novel - the tapestry is just so rich.

I'd also like a dancing kitten, just sayin'.

These are characters, and they are also performers playing a part and the show must go on. The tiny chapters with differing points of view and times, unusually, didn't annoy, but seemed to keep the impetus going - you wanted to keep turning the pages, if only to find the next circus creation.

Definately for the younger (Twilight/Harry Potter) generation who like fantasy and to escape reading, but also I feel for those that aren't big readers. There is meant to be a movie coming out, and I really really hope they pull out all the stops.

Get this. Beg, steal or borrow it if you haven't read it.

Did you ever want to runaway to the circus as a child?

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