The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which took me about six months to get through. I am a very quick reader, but I just kept laying this novel aside and picking it back up every few weeks to read a page or ten, so it took me longer than it usually would to finish such a small book. I'll try to be as diplomatic as I can about this.......the book doesn't live up to the hype. When it was released it was named one of the best books of the year for 2011. That just shows you how uninteresting the books of last year were.
In all fairness, the author paints a stunning visual picture of the titled circus, detailed descriptions of shows, costumes, meals, and sumptuous Victorian settings are first rate. I just wish she had spent more time and energy on fleshing out the characters and the plot line. The story of a mysterious circus as the venue for two rivals in a mysterious contest intrigued me. But I found myself not caring about the characters and what happened to them. And even though the buildup for the finale is fairly well done, it falls apart at the end, and seems to fly off in all directions with no cohesion.
The movie rights for this have already been optioned. I'm curious to see if Hollywood can do anything to improve it. I say skip the book and wait for the movie.
Anne,
ReplyDeleteYou need to update your Blog. Seriously!-Jessica