The Night Circus

2.5/5 stars

It's not made for me ¯_(ツ)_/¯ . I'm sure there are tons of people who read this book and have a completely different opinion on what I have to say. Check their reviews, read it, & come to your own conclusions. This a book that I was excited to read only to be disappointed. I was so close to DNFing this many times but l powered through. I was holding onto hope until the last 100 pages and that is when I accepted that this was going to have a low rating.

I am aware that a lot of people hold a lot of love for this book because of its prose and fantasy elements. These two aspects of the book made it feel so much longer than it was. For the first couple of chapters, I was fine with it but after getting halfway through the book I was tired of it. To me, it felt as if this prevented me from actually connecting to the characters which then affected how I viewed the romance aspect of the book. It felt like instant love to me. It felt as if they were interested in each other for the sole reason that they both were magicians. This can also be because there were so many characters that were explored. Some of which we have to go back in time to explore. It all ends up being too much to keep track of because in the end some of them aren't relevant at all later on in the book. Although I will say that some of these side characters were the reason I continued reading this book. (Some were more interesting than others.)

There is also a lot of exaggeration in how the book is marketed/described by other readers. There was no fierce competition or a duel. They are raised separately and told little about when the competition will happen and what it will consist of. This was rather frustrating especially when they kept hinting that it would be brutal only for it to turn out to be rather mundane. They literally build circus attractions. Sometimes it's not even competing because they help each other out when building them. In the end there are no high stakes in the book.

I would recommend this too people love overly detailed writing with very little plot. I can't say that I hate this book or regret reading it I just wish that I had grown to connect with the book.