I recently finished reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and I was enraptured enough that now I'm having trouble finding a book to follow it.
The Night Circus is the story of two magicians in a competition of skill and endurance and the circus that is their venue. What I found most intriguing about this book, however, is the circus itself. The descriptions of the tents, the acts, the food, and the atmosphere have an air of dark, almost melancholy beauty about them. The circus itself, most probably intentionally, becomes as much a character in the novel as Marco and Celia, the two magicians.
I'm usually a sucker for a good love story when surrounded by a greater plot, but the relationship between these two had the potential to get too heavy and drown out the voices of the other characters (circus included), which would have been a tragedy. The author instead dealt artfully with their involvement and what we are left with is the knowledge that they, and the others involved in Le Cirque des Rêves are simply part of a greater whole--a living environment whose purpose, and pleasure, is to create something beautiful and intriguing for an audience to enjoy. It made me wish that such a place really existed.
For now I'm trying to move on to my next read--The Great Typo Hunt by Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson. But while I enjoy the geeky-quirky writing style and sarcastically arrogant tone, I find myself missing Le Cirque des Rêves.
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