Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede 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. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is 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—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. 

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.” (Good Reads)

 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is unlike anything I have read. The world it creates is surreal and  a bit voyeuristic. The present-tense narration juxtaposed by the short descriptive sections that describe how you, the reader, would experience the circus make it stand out, and emphasize how focused Morgenstern is on making the circus tangible. This is a book I would like to read again, so I can linger and enjoy more of the visuals that Morgenstern so masterfully paints.

Originality: 10. This is fantastical and fantastically unique. The possibilities are endless since each tent is a world unto itself. My favorite is the tent that is really a forest made out of paper, wherein the paper is sheets of love poems.

Absurdity. 8. But the circus is supposed to be surreal, so this is a sign, I think, that the book did what Morgenstern set out to do. I suspended belief and dove right in.

Level of Paranormal Romance: Dueling magicians falling in love? And then using the circus tents they build to express their love? SURE THING.

“Do you remember all of your audiences?" Marco asks. "Not all of them," Celia says. "But I remember the people who look at me the way you do.""What way might that be?""As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me."" I am not afraid of you," Marco says.” 

 Level of Harry Potterness: 8. This writing! Wow! It is rich and enchanting (as fitting a book about magic). One thing my mom pointed out (my mom lets me foist books I like on her all the time. Moms are great) is that you don’t really ever connect to the characters. The main show (circus pun!?) is about the tents themselves and the visual spectacle. I was fine with this, but it might not be for everyone. I still give this an 8 because I love Morgenstern's atmospheric writing- see the posts on her blog, Flax-Golden Tales. MY FAVORITE AFTER THE BREAK.

Waiting on Wednesday: Before I Wake by Rachel Vincent

I am fully aware that this is a YA-trope-tastic cover.
And I don't care!

This week's Waiting in Wednesday is devoted to the 6th book in the Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent. In case you missed it, I had a fling with this series in January--it inspired the Crusin' Through a Series feature here at YAF and WS--(see here for why I'm not sorry to have read an entire slightly ridic series about banshees).  Before I Wake comes out June 26th! 

I died on a Thursday-killed by a monster intent on stealing my soul. The good news? He didn't get it. The bad news? Turns out not even death will get you out of high school...  Covering up her own murder was one thing, but faking life is much harder than Kaylee Cavanaugh expected. After weeks spent "recovering," she's back in school, fighting to stay visible to the human world, struggling to fit in with her friends and planning time alone with her new reaper boyfriend. But to earn her keep in the human world, Kaylee must reclaim stolen souls, and when her first assignment brings her face-to-face with an old foe, she knows the game has changed. Her immortal status won't keep her safe. And this time Kaylee isn't just gambling with her own life....(Good Reads).

Why do I want to read this book? 1. I was impressed that Vincent managed to trick me into actually changing alliances between certain brothers.......(I usually stand on the side of NOT making eyes at your boyfriend's brother).  Which leads me to reason 2: Tod.  I have a crush on this pizza-delivery-boy-grim-reaper. I mean, he casually quotes Dylan Thomas. And he is sarcastic. How great was the high school hallway showdown in book 5!? I GASPED!  Bring on the witty grim-reaper banter!

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Quotes

Hello Internet on this Glorious Top Ten Tuesday! This weekend, while consuming tasty bratwursts, truffle-oil drenched fries and white wine (well, we tried, but then gave into canned beverages, we were in Brooklyn after all) Goosie Mama*, Grad Student and I came up with the following list of Top Ten Favorite Quotes

*Goosie Mama was there, but in all seriousness, perhaps she was just playing Jenga and scampering around....

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

"A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world."

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!"

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey

"Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break....I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun."

How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford

"The whole summer stretched out before us, long, hot, endless."

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

"I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, "I have wonderful news!" And I was like, "I don't really want to hear wonderful news right now," and Gus said, "This is wonderful news you want to hear," and I asked him, "Fine, what is it?" and he said, "You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!""

"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book."

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

"It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

(BEWARE THE FOLLOWING SAD)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (the Whale)

"Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Okay okay, calm down calm down get a grip now. Ooh, this is an interesting sensation. What is it? Its a sort of tingling in my... well I suppose I better start finding names for things. Lets call it a... tail! Yeah! Tail! And hey, what's this roaring sound, whooshing past what I'm suddenly gonna call my head? Wind! Is that a good name? It'll do. Yeah, this is really exciting. I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello, Ground!  [Cuts to a distant view as the whale hits the ground and spews up a large mushroom cloud of snow]"

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

"My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other."

Thank you, internet, for the Well Read Ryan Gosling tumblr

(Notes from Grad Student: I love funny quotes, but none made the list. Honorable mention to Jellicoe Road, which I wanted to have quotes from, but couldn’t pick from all the awesome. AND GEEZ the whale makes me sad from the Hitchhiker's Guide...)


And to leave you with a Hey Girl Jack Kerouac  quote edition...

Review: Paper Towns by John Green

Margo Roth Spiegelman is smart, beautiful, a bit reckless, and, as we learn in Paper Towns, mysterious and lost. One night at the end of high school she wakes her band-geek neigbhor Quentin Jacobsen for an epic campaign of revenge.  Q has loved Margo from afar most of his life, and this night is magic (and full of mayhem). But after an night of rule-breaking Margo disappears, and no one seems to know who the real Margo really was or where she could be.  It appears she left clues for Quentin--so he sets out on a wild ride to track her down.


John Green's Paper Towns is a more serious read than the 'crazy high school prank' opening lets on. It asks important questions about how we perceive others and how hard it is to truly know someone when they are still trying to figure themselves out. It is a lovely portrayal of the bittersweet experiences at the end of high school, and one of my favorite depictions of friendship I have read in a long time. Radar and Ben are EXCELLENT wingmen. I would absolutely love to join them on an epic road-trip.

• Originality: 9.  LEGIT. The characters seem so real with their quirks and trials and tribulations of senior band-geek boys. Also, (and probably more importantly) how can you not find a book based around a Walt Whitman poem and quirky historical map features original?
• Absurdity: 5. NOW you may think this is a high rating for a contemporary fiction book. And this 5 does not even reflect the fact (that people sometimes complain about with Green's books) that in real life high schoolers don't run around talking like well-read adults or thinking big thoughts. But I am cool with that part of this book. It is a nice fantasy. This absurdity rating goes to the fact that I didn't buy the fact that Margo Roth Spiegelman was so fascinating. She came off a bit selfish and desperate (it made sense that I felt this, since Green has mentioned Into the Wild an influence--I find that character very selfish). MEANWHILE, I LOVED Q. Now I know selfish characters can serve a purpose. But here, I was not convinced that Q would be so dedicated to the "find Margo" cause. This might be a discussion about the person Q hopes to find in Margo versus who she actaully is and why that matters to the book's larger themes.....but this is not class! moving on!
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 3. Q talks about love  but this is not that kind of a book (Margo is missing. It is hard to cuddle a missing person).
• Level of Harry-Potterness: 9. This book is witty, smart, and lyrical.  It also has literary chops. Symbolism, metaphor, references to great literary works ( it hinges on Whitman's epic poem Leaves of Grass, for goodness sake!) I wish I had read it at a slower speed.  If you want to find out more, AKA the meaning of the "great white cow" see Green's "Questions about Paper Towns."

PS: JOHN GREEN IS A-ONE. I'm a fan of how he can be hilarious AND smart in a single sentence.  If you need further proof of the funniness, watch this. DFTBA!

Summing Up a Genre

I've been cranking through some young adult and some dumb adult fiction recently (yes, there will be a post on this). While some are better than others, the premises all remain pretty similar. Young, female heroine, doesn't realize she's beautiful/talented/special/amazing, etc., she falls for some strikingly dashing man boy and let the relationship/life drama commence.

Hand in hand with this, I think I've figured out the success of One Direction's current hit "What Makes You Beautiful." It's literally the premise for every single young adult fiction book I've read in 2012!

Happy almost Cinco de Mayo!

Friday Library Updates

I arrived at my parent's house on Wednesday and my Mom was all, "Hi hunnie, I saw the new Sookie  Stackhouse at the library, so I picked it up for you." And I said, "Gee, thanks!" Then I came into the kitchen to this:

MOM IS AWESOME. Then I turned the books over and almost died: 

I followed her around the kitchen holding this to my face pretending to be Charlaine, but she would not participate (we could BOTH do it with our Mommy and Me books). Moral of the story, Mom didn't want to have to fight me for Deadlocked. 'Cause shiz would have gotten real fast. I told Crazy Camper, and this is the g-chat conversation that followed:

 Crazy Camper:  can you finish it so i can take it home? [CC comes to NYC this weekend. Huzzah!]

 me:  its a lib book

 Crazy Camper:  SOUL CRUSHING

i could mail it back?

 me:  7 day loan- sorry to be a dream crusher

 Crazy Camper:  library book woes

Meanwhile in Insurgent library news.... Goosie Mama needs to GET HER ACT TOGETHER because I am #130 on the list* to get Insurgent  by Veronica Roth from the NYPL. And that list is not getting any shorter. Goosie Mama is a much bigger fan than me. What is she thinking!?!

(Note: We are hoping the library buys like 80 more copies of this book. They do that sometimes, because libraries are awesome.)

Review: Nightspell by Leah Cypess

Here be ghosts, the maps said, and that was all. In this haunted kingdom, ghosts linger—not just in the deepest forests or the darkest caverns, but alongside the living, as part of a twisted palace court that revels all night and sleeps through the daylight hours. Darri’s sister was trapped in this place of fear and shadows as a child. And now Darri has a chance to save her sister... if she agrees to a betrothal with the prince of the dead. But nothing is simple in this eerie kingdom—not her sister, who has changed beyond recognition; not her plan, which will be thrown off track almost at once; and not the undead prince, who seems more alive than anyone else. In a court seething with the desire for vengeance, Darri holds the key to the balance between life and death. Can her warrior heart withstand the most wrenching choice of all? (Good Reads)

I picked up Nightspell by Leah Cypess 1. Because it had a pretty cover; 2. It was available for immediate download--it was late, I had a free moment, and needed something to read (I am SUCH the intellectual when it comes to book choices). I liked this book, but was surprised that so much of it was about the politicking of the royal court of Ghostland. Since everyone lives forever as ghosts, there are lots of layers of intrigue and relationships that shape the story.  The action parts were the best part, but I was intrigued AND repulsed by the politics of this world, which I think is exactly what Cypess wants.

Originality: 8. A country of ghosts is not something you see everyday. The hint of the smell of decay behind perfume, the attempts to pretend life still exists were creepy and made Ghostland exotic in a way that drew you in.

Absurdity: 2. This was a bit creepy, but I did not find it ridiculous at all.  It is fantasy, you just need to roll with it. I find I more willingly accept fantasy books than the “wake up one day and realize there is a paranormal world out there and you are crucially important to it” story line.

Level of Paranormal Romance: 3. The big story here is not really about Prince Kestin and Darri (although the prince is a rather well-drawn character, he has his flaws but is kind and has definitely learned from past mistakes in love. This is important since that past love literally haunts him. Since it is a country of ghosts. Ouch). The rather small potential for romance is not as important as Darri’s relationship with her sister.

Level of Harry-Potter-ness: 6. The world-building here is detailed and atmospheric. And the ending? Surprisingly bittersweet. 

If you want a book that functions as a stand-alone, check this one out. I would have liked to spend more time in this world.

Waiting on Wednesday: Romeo Redeemed by Stacey Jay

Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo, known for his ruthless, cutthroat ways, is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland. Unbeknownst to her, Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart. (Good Reads)

THE SHAME

This is a "seriously embarrassing cover" edition of Waiting on Wednesday here at YAF and WS. WoW is a great weekly post hosted by Breaking the Spine, where we share what books are at the top of our to read lists. This week I am waiting on Romeo Redeemed, the sequel to Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay. In Juliet Immortal we find out that the most tragic love story ever told is a lie--  Juliet Capulet didn't take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, a sacrifice made to ensure his own immortality. For the following 700 years, she fought Romeo to save the souls of true lovers. (and I mean FIGHT. Like fisticuffs everywhere. Butt-kicking Juliet, I liked you!).  This sequel follows Romeo and his last efforts to lift the curse he brought upon himself by betraying Juliet all those years ago.

BUT WHY DOES THE COVER HAVE TO LOOK LIKE THIS!?! It is a teeny-bopper version of From Here to Eternity. I will ONLY read this on my Nook.

At least they are in swimsuits. That is a better idea.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books To Be Made Into Movies

LOOK AT THAT AWESOME OUTFIT

Hello, hello! Happy May! Today's post is a Top Ten Tuesday. Hosted by the Broke and the Bookish, this list-mania meme is dedicated this week to the top ten books we would love to see be made into movies. Here it goes!

1 and 2:  I have been cool with Sci-Fi YA since Zenon (Anybody?) so I would love to see Cinder by Marissa Meyer and The Rowan by Ann McCaffery!  It has been 20 years people, lets get The Rowan on the big screen. ( this and Zenon together made Sci-Fi a big thing for me and Crazy Camper).
 
3. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This is an obvious one. This book is dying to become a movie, its so visual.

4. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. (review!) The vistas of Ireland alone would be worth it! SWOON.

5. "Goblin Fruit," a short story in Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor. You would need to flesh the story out more, but Taylor has all kind of cool tricks in  Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I am sure this is possible: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?


6. His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pulman. That movie was mostly AWFUL( I reserve the little bit not awful for Daniel Craig). Lets pretend it never happened and make these into movies again!

7. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks by E. Lockhart.  I am only halfway through this book, but who doesn't love a good caper flick? And I love that she is always two steps ahead of the boys.

8. Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Vampires that DON'T sparkle (they are creepy and gray-ish) in a post-apocalyptic magical world for the win! Things blow up, too. So this would be a vampire action movie.

And a book I would worry about being made into a movie: 

9.  The Fault in Our Stars by John Green Now, I loooovvve this book. But so much of what makes Hazel awesome is how she is so much more than her illness, but also is who she is because of the awareness being sick has given her. What if that didn't translate!?! Plus I don't know if my emotions could make it. I might cry myself into a puddle.

Flew away in a huff

I worry what my lamp would think of some of my reading...

source: this isn't happiness