by Erin Morgenstern
“People see what they wish to see. And in most cases, what they are told that they see.”
Two men, ancient beyond the scope of the story, agree on a wager, with each picking a youth to train as a champion. When the time is right, the students will battle, and the survivor will determine which of the old men was correct in his bet. But the two students are bound to each other at the moment the wager is sealed, and the traveling circus in which they operate is in turn bound up with them as the fabric of reality is tested.
Packed with illusion and enchantment, the novel is a wonderful love story at its core. As is the case with the best circus tales, the magnificence of the setting reminds you of the days when you held liquid fire in the palm of your hand, when you leaped as high as you could and never came back down–when you were magic.
The novel is excellent all the way through, but its final 10% is the where the immortal tower is built, and it’s also where you’ll find the book was written with you already inside of it.
The Night Circus is part Bradbury, part Shakespeare, part parable and all heart.
And then he tells her stories. Myths he learned from his instructor. Fantasies he created himself, inspired by bits and pieces of others read in archaic books with crackling spines. Circus concepts that would not fit in tents.
5 stars
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