By: Reagan Anderson
Book by: Erin Morgenstern
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was published in September of 2011. The genre of The Night Circus is romantic fantasy, with romance being a sub-plot. The book is an adult story that follows 2 magicians that compete against each other in a competition. The story between these 2 magicians goes on for 528 pages and maintains the “just one more page” dynamic. The book has a very strong plot that follows 2 different stories that take place in the same world and often have overlapping settings.
Erin Morgenstern is now a successful author, writing a few novels in her career, but originally made her debut with The Night Circus. She creates characters with strong and deep backstories that help readers build connections with the characters. Her world-building creates clear pictures of settings and characters in your mind. Her writing flows in a way where it keeps you wanting to know what happens next. The flow is so precise that The Night Circus will have you wanting to stay up late to finish it.
Like the title suggests, this “special circus” only is open at night. Despite this, many patrons will visit the circus and spend the whole night. The circus was designed to drag you from tent to tent and make you loose track of time. Loosing track of time is not the only reason patrons spend the whole night, the circus changes locations every few days. The circus comes and goes with no set date or anyone knowing where, when, or if it will return. One day, the circus will just show up, and patrons will line up at dust to buy their ticket and enter. Bailey is one of these patrons who lines up to enter. He also has a small connection to the circus which nobody believes.
The Night Circus follows 2 magicians from their youth to their late teen years/early twenties. These magicians are Marco Alisdair and Celia Bowen. The book starts off with 2 older magicians who are rivals. Based on their competitive nature, they forge a competition between their future star students, Marco and Celia. They will have a competition in their future, but the date of the competition is unknown to both of the competitors until it begins. Both of these magicians have special talents that they learned from their teachers. The teaching styles are very different so when the competition does begin, there will be obvious differences in their magic styles.
If you’re still not sure about the genres of the book, the fantasy aspect will grab your attention because of its complex and creative setting and world building. The romance genre is small but is also a key part of the story that will change the course of characters throughout the story. If you like books with complex worlds that are an “escape from reality” definitely pick up The Night Circus.
