Petrik's Reviews > The Night Circus

Buddy reading this book with my favorite Princess Celeste

2.5/5 Stars

There will be rants on this review, if you're easily offended I recommend you to stay away from continuing.

I really wish I could rate this higher but if you heard about this book already, you probably know there have been a lot of mixed reviews on it. It’s either you really love it or you really hate it. Sadly, I’m one of those closer to hating it.

Before you read this book, I must state two things.

1.DO NOT TRUST THE BLURB & THE REVIEWS WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF THE BOOK. THEY ARE SO MISLEADING AND WILL RUIN YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF THIS BOOK. Seriously, whoever wrote those deserve to get fired, they completely misled me into buying this book with wrong expectation.

2. The Night Circus is not a plot centered book, it’s not a character driven book, it’s a setting centered book and guess what the book is about? (Hint: the title). This is literally what the book is about.

I’ll get around to them later but first I’ll start my review with my favorite part of the book, the writing and setting.

I can’t stress this highly enough, just look at all other reviews on this, even from those who gave this book 1-3 stars, everyone agreed that Erin Morgernstern’s writing is an absolute beauty. Everything in this book is written so beautifully and enchanting that it made me really wish a circus like this do exist.



The setting, the clothes, the magic and even the food are so magical and written in so much detail. (Seriously, prepare to play Hunger Games on your fridge.) Honestly, Morgernstern’s writing alone truly deserves 5 stars, it's the only reason why I still gave the book 2.5 stars even though I have so many problems with it.

I like to think of Morgernstern writings as makeup. You know when you put on makeup to make yourself more pretty or hide the imperfection such as pimple on your face? This is exactly the case. It’s like Morgernstern conjured a spell of BB Cream and Concealer to hide the fact that there’s so many problem within the book.

Now I’m going to talk about the problems, remember that this is all just my observation and opinion.

1. The main characters developments are close to none.
For me, great character developments are one of the most important factors in my love for any book. Other than Bailey, Widget and Poppet (which don’t have enough appearances, Bailey should’ve been the main character rather than Marco or Celia.) I seriously don’t give a shit what happened to any of the other characters because they’re all so flat. There’s just not enough development on them to make me really care. Even after knowing what happened to some of the characters in the book at the end, the only reaction I could give is



2. Extremely slow paced with no plot progression.
I don’t mind slow paced book as long as there is some sense of plot progression, character developments or great climax and satisfying ending waiting for me at the end. In fact, I really love slow paced books which took its time to develop the plot and characters carefully. However, in this book, not only the plot moved at a snail pace, there are so MANY unnecessary parts that could be cut out. Page 220-350 is a major snooze fest for me. All they talk about is the Night Circus over and over again which I get it already, it’s magical. The color of tents is black and white, there’s a majestic clock and a white bonfire, stop repeating them over and over again! These 100+ pages could’ve been used to develop the characters and plot more but no, we get tons of repetitive description again on The Night Circus and unimportant information.

Now let’s talk about the most misleading part in the blurb as well as the rest of the problems. (yes there’s still more.)

1. “A fierce competition is underway” and “The circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will”
I can’t say much about these without spoiling the ending but I’ll say this, there’s no FIERCE competition at all. Don’t expect any kind of skill, action or magic rivalry, there is none. Even the main characters don’t know what the competition is about until around page 400 out of 500 which is really dumb. By the time it was revealed, it was super underwhelming and provide no intensity to the story whatsoever.

2. “Morgernstern manages to conjure up a love story for adults that feels luxuriously romantic” –The Washington Post
Whoever wrote this is either a kid, someone who read a different book or batshit insane cause the love story that occurred in this book is definitely not a luxuriously romantic adult love. It’s instead one of my most hated trope in books, insta-love. The love stories happened twice in this book and guess what? Both of them involved one of the main character, (view spoiler)[Marco (hide spoiler)] and are both insta-love. Both happened within ONE CHAPTER on their FIRST TALK with each other. The magicians in the story, especially (view spoiler)[Marco (hide spoiler)] seriously need to use some of their magic to keep control of their libido. It will save some of the major conflicts that happened in the book.

Overall, I don’t like the book and I’m really disappointed with it. It starts off really great only to loses its charm and magic quickly. Inflicted with a lot of problems, this is currently one of my lowest rated books in my bookshelves. I should state this though, if you’re looking to read something magical, beautiful settings with absolutely beautiful writings ONLY, I’ll definitely recommend this. However if you’re looking for something with great story, satisfying ending, fantastic characters development, great romance or even an ant sized of actions, nope, I can’t recommend this book. You won’t find any of them here, I’d even tell you to stay away but again, all of this is purely my opinion and my review, you could end up loving it much more than I do.

As I mentioned in the beginning of my review, it’s either you hate it or you love it. Sadly, like the quote in the book “The circus arrives without warning” for me it’s more like “The disappointment arrives without warning.”