THE HEADLINE: A magical circus comes to town, but no one is aware of the battle being fought behind the curtains.
THE ABDUCTOR: Because I listened to the audio version, the abductors in the Night Circus were definitely both Erin Morgenstern and Jim Dale. The combination of Morgenstern’s incredible writing and Dale’s vocal talents was instantly captivating!
TIME IN CAPTIVITY: It may have been because it was Jim Dale reading this book to me, but this book reminded me a lot of the Harry Potter series. The way that Morgenstern and Rowling introduce us to their magical worlds were both instantly visual, I was always right there in the moment with the characters. Of course this was helped by the fact that in Morgenstern’s novel, she included chapters that were written from the perspective of “You walk between the black and white curtains.” “You see a fortune teller and a young girl playing with kittens.”
I found myself caring about the characters and yet at the same time, was never quite sure if I should trust any of them. The basic story follows the characters of Ceila and Marco. We meet them as kids when both of their teachers bind them into a competition against each other, however they don’t meet their opponents until adulthood.
Ceila’s teacher is actually her father, Hector Bowen, and I foun
d his methods of teaching her to be barbaric and harsh. On the other hand Marco was taught by a man named Alexander who selected him from an orphanage. His methods came across to me as uncaring and isolating. As their competition heats up it begins to involve the lives of the people around them they care the most about.
If I were to have anything negative to say about The Night Circus it would be two things. One being that the names and timeline could lead to some confusion. Almost all of the main characters have their own name and a stage name or have a nick name so they were continuously referred to by something different depending on whose perspective was narrating at that moment. And although each chapter began by giving you the exact location and date, when you are listening to the audio version it can easily go unnoticed.
My only other complaint would be that I was not too fond of the ending. Not because I didn’t agree with the climax or the resolution, but because I felt the resolution part went on for far too long. There were several moments that I thought were going to be the end and was disappointed that there were more chapters left. Now I agree that when a book is as enchanting as this one you may never want to leave it, but even in the best of books if the resolution at the end goes on too long then it almost cheapens the actual climax.
PICK UP LINE: “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
POINT OF ABDUCTION: Pretty much the first 10 minutes. The writing of this book, the rhythm the diction, the tone, instantly abducted me. And that is a real rarity for me. I’m a big character driven person rather then plot driven when it comes to my favorite books. But this book had me before the plot was established or main characters were even introduced.
ABDUCTION RATING: HUGE 5 stars!!! Although the ending sort of faded out for me to the point where I can understand why some people have a hard time with it, the book as a whole was so beautiful that I must have it and must reread it ASAP!
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I have also started a new audio book by Jennifer Cruise called All Night With Charlie. So far it is exactly what I would expect from a Cruise novel, romantic comedy fun. However, most of her novels involve characters that hate each other or fight their attraction to each other through out the first 3/4 of the novel and don’t hook up until the end. 
