The Night Circus

Why have I never read The Night Circus before?

I’m officially way too late to the party. I remember everyone raving about The Night Circus some time ago, but never got around to reading it myself somehow. Only now, with reawakened interested due to the release of The Starless Sea, I was reminded that I still had The Night Circus on my shelves.

I am very glad I finally read it. The descriptions of the Night Circus itself are just wonderful and it sounds like such a wonderfully magical place, that it immediately became one of my favorite fictional places.

The trial however, for me never reached its full potential. It was very mysterious for the bigger part of the novel, and what never got resolved to my satisfaction was why the rules were never explained properly to the candidates. Why could they not be told? Perhaps because of these loose ends, I never fully invested in their romance because besides them both being abused by their teacher/parent there didn’t seem much ground to explain this.

Also, I thought the ending was a bit too neat and everything was resolved so quickly that I was slightly disappointed by this. Hence the four stars, because the circus itself was absolutely fantastic(al)!