But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into
love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
I am proud to say that I am part of a fantastic book club. My former coworkers and I used to meet from time to time to discuss books during lunch breaks, and after some of us moved on to other organizations, we decided to revamp the old book club so we could hang out more. We chose The Night Circus for our first read and met last week for a black and white themed book club party.
The general concessus from our discussion was that The Night Circus was like a really pretty movie. The story was really enjoyable, the descriptions of the circus were so fun, and the turn of the century setting left me feeling very nostalgic. But when it was all over, I thought "wait, what did I just read? I don't think that made a lot of sense." If you like the books you read to make sense and have some meaning, my recommendation is to do exactly what I do with pretty movies: enjoy it for what it is and don't ask a lot of questions. For this reason, I think The Night Circus would make for great summer reading. And speaking of movies, I think this story would translate better as a movie than as a book; you could get carried away with the magic and imagery of the circus without worrying so much about character development and plot consistency.