The Night Circus

Title: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

Rating: 5 stars

Genre: Historical, Fantasy

Number of Pages: 490

Publisher: Vintage Books

Publication Date: 2011

Summary: The Circus arrives without warning

No announcement proceeds it...

It is simply there, when 

yesterday it was not

Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements, and it's only open at night.

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.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

In part one of The Night Circus we meet the main characters of the story over the expanse of several years. We get brief glances of our main characters from the age of 5 in 1873 till their late teens 1886. The story starts off with introducing lots of intriguing ideas and establishes much of the story. Usually these long wind up stories will bore me and I give up but this book has such an enchanting feel to it, that even if there was no plot line for the entire book I probably would have kept reading. Never have I read a book that the writing and story dazzle in perfect synchronicity.

In is in part two that we are introduced to the Circus...and what a Circus it is. The entire circus is a work or art and incredible imagination. Le Cirque des Reves, the Circus of Dreams,  is only open at night and is entirely decked out in black and white and the best performers. But this is no ordinary circus, hiding in plain site , the circus is the platform of extraordinary magic not the illusions that the audience believes it is seeing. Marco and Celia are pitted in a game where they don't know the rules or how to win, all they know is that they must out do each other in feats of breathtaking imagination.

But as the years go by Celia and Marco find that they no longer compete against each other but instead build their magical creations for each other. But the competition must come to an end and Celia and Marco must find a way to end the competition without the drastic consequences that threaten the circus and their love.

But Celia and Marco aren't the only characters to tell a story, born under the strange and unique circumstances of the circus' magical opening night, the Murray twins, Poppet and Widget are two key players in the survival of the circus with their unique abilities and the help of a farm boy, Bailey with big dreams.

In short, I loved this book! It was magical and enchanting and was a world that I would love to see come to life. The book doesn't have the most compelling story line but it is written beautifully and I couldn't put it down.

Black-Eyed Susans

Title:Black-Eyed Susans

Author: Julia Heaberlin

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Thriller/ Mystery

Number of Pages: 349

Publisher: Penguin

Publication Date: 2015

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Tessa, dubbed a 'Black-Eyed Susan' by the media, became famous for being the only victim to survive the vicious attack of a serial killer. Her testimony helped put a dangerous criminal behind bars - or so she thought.

Now decades later, the case has been reopened and the black-eyed Susans planted outside Tessa's bedroom window seem to be a message from a killer who should be safely in prison.

Tessa agrees to help with the investigation, but she is haunted by fragmented memories of the night she was attacked and terrified for her own teenage daughter's safety, Can she unlock the truth about the killer before it is too late?

I really struggled to get into this book. The main reason for this was that I found that rather than saying what was happening, it just seemed to dance around events and teased you with information to the point where you wanted to pick the book up and throw it across the room. If you picked this book up without reading the summary first, I really think you would spend the first 70 or so pages of this book wondering what was going on. For people who love suspense and being kept guessing this is the book for you. Me, would have liked a bit more information to understand what was happening.

However, once I got through the first part of this book I really, really enjoyed it. The mystery begins to unfold in a way that allows you to follow and make your own assumptions, pushing and pulling you on the right track and sometimes leading you down dead ends. This book was filled with an amazing amount of little details, and the past and present are highly intertwined in a way that shows the amount of thought and detail that Heaberlin has put into this book,

This book alternates in perspective between Tessa or present day and a younger Tessie following the events of her attack. By telling the story in this perspective, Heaberlin doesn't really have Tessa talk about the events of her past so much as she focuses on the present and the results of what happened all those years ago. The story told from Tessa's point of view was definitely more enjoyable as this was what told the bulk of the story and was were ultimately the mystery and thriller aspect of the book were present. This meant that sometimes the other chapters told from a different perspective sometimes felt a little irrelevant to the overall story and were almost acting as a filler or breaker.

The Lux Series

 I first picked up the Lux Series about two years ago, I flew through the first three books and for what ever reason I just decided to stop. So I figured it was about time I went back and finished what I had started.

The first three books for me, I would probably describe as a contemporary/ science-fiction cross over. Rather than focusing so much on the fact that there are aliens present in this book, this almost takes a back seat to everyday teenage problems, such as friendships and relationships. 

The first three books Obsidian, Onyx, and Opal are told through the perspective of Katy, a book vlogger/ blogger who has just moved with her mother to a small town where she quickly gets to know her new neighbours Dee and Daemon. I found that these books seemed to changed from everything happening at one time to nothing happening at all, there wasn't much of an inbetween. But for whatever reason though, this worked for the series and I didn't really dwell on it.

The final two books in the series are, however, when everything changes. Origin and Opposition are told from dual perspectives. With both Katy and Daemon narrating these final two books the world of the Lux expands exponentially. These books have probably got the best dual perspective I have ever read. No other book has created such clear distinctions between the two characters, showed different sides of both the main and minor characters and shaken the whole plot line up quite so dramatically. By doing this, Armentrout created a huge and complex amount of depth to all of her characters and I really wish that she had done this through the first three books as well.

Alongside this series is the book Shadows a prequel to the events of first book and told through a different POV again, Dee and Daemon's brother Dawson. While this book is not necessary for the series it does help to once again build on the complexity of the characters in this series.

And finally to top of this series is the book Oblivion the first three books condensed down to tell Daemon's POV. I was worried when I picked this up that it would be like every other book that I have read like this and simply tell the same story but from a different perspective, totally a waste of time. I couldn't have been more wrong. Reading the dual perspectives has nothing on this book. Reading Daemon's POV of events was enlightening to say the least, all of sudden you see more character flaws in character's that Katy didn't and in Katy herself. Character's that hadn't made much sense before suddenly did. This book really drove home the point of 'you can't understand a person until you walk in their shoes'.

While I don't consider these books to be great master pieces, I gave each of them 4 stars because I did ultimately really enjoy them. I did find that Armentrout is clearly an author more suited for New Adult books than YA as I did find that this reflects through her work and I found it quite obvious in some places of her writing. I'm really interested now to actually read a book of hers that is New Adult.