The Night Circus

[Lara2]

I was given this by my neighbour and just finished it this weekend. I absolutely loved it - was so sad to finish it. The only thing that annoyed me though was the vagueness of the Challenge between Marco and Celia - still not sure exactly what is actually was. Am I just being totally dense?
I still want to run away and join the circus though!

I felt exactly the same, I get that M and C themselves only had a vague notion of what the contest entailed - but I felt like I wanted to know more (ideally with more peril) as the reader.

But jeepers, I want to host a midnight dinner party and run away to join the circus, I have been thinking wistfully about monochrome big tops ever since!

It's a very evocative book, the challenge is almost a side issue imho. Everything is so well described, you can definitely 'see' it

Ooh, Ioved this book and have foisted it up DH who is reading it now. It had a real Neil Gaiman/Strange and Norrell feel for me. I wanted to get inside the book and explore the circus.

One of my all time favourite books. Up there with The Dovekeepers.

Loved this book, it was totally up my street. I read it on my kindle last year, but have been considering purchasing the paperback to look beautiful on my shelves. I found it so beautifully descriptive that I was able to completely immerse myself in it. I did find the ending slightly disappointing though, I think it felt like a bit of a cop out almost...but I'm rarely happy with the ending of books (very hard to please).

I really wanted to love it. But was Frustrated by the total lack of detail about the challenge, the source of the magic etc. I read an interview with the author saying that she'd dreamt about the idea of the circus and it was such a striking, mesmerising image that she went with that and had to come up with a story that fitted it.. imho this shows. Lots of style, little substance.

I loved this book, found it utterly enchanting. I first read it just after DD was born a few years ago while I was up in the middle of the night. I have to say that reading it at 3am when the world is quiet and it's just you awake adds an extra bit of magic to it. (but it's not worth waking up just to experience this!)

If you liked Night Circus, don't miss Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

It's what Night Circus wants to be when it grows up

I loved this too. I read the first page out loud when I received it from a friend, my sons were eating lunch at the time and they asked me to read more so they got the whole of the first very descriptive chapter which they were spellbound by. (I didn't read them any more, they're only 3 and 6).

It's got some fairly large plot holes, the ending is predictable from about the middle of the book and some of it makes no sense at all but its so evocative and beautifully written that I forgive it.