Week 7 - Night Circus

Erin Morgenstern's Night Circus has perhaps been one of my favorite reads in this semester.  I think there was definitely something special in how Morgenstern discribes the magic and mystery that surround the circus, and I loved how she showed the passage of time in short sections that kept jumping back and forth and kept me guessing as to what exactly would happen next.  I really felt completely pulled into the setting of this novel, the time period and the way that she describes the world around you - I particularly enjoyed the short 1-2 page vignettes where she just zooms in on the sights and sounds of the circus.  As for the rest of the novel, I did have trouble keeping up with the slight nuances of the game that Marco and Celia are pulled into and I wasn't particularly a fan of the climax to the novel (where they duel from afar).
However, I was always rooting for Celia's abilities, and I loved how her character was the one who was  brought up to be the more "physically" magical that Marco, which made it a great contrast between the two characters and flipped the gender roles. I couldn't help but feel that Isobel's story oftentimes got in the way of the supposed fated love that binds Celia and Marco together.  I'm not sure exactly, but I felt this part wasn't entirely as fleshed out as the actual world itself.  Nevertheless, I still loved the world itself, and I especially loved many of the side characters - Widget and Poppet, Bailey, and Tsukiko all had interesting and important places in the novel as well.

Also, reading this week's novel was interesting because it really inspired me to do a "circus-themed" piece in my digital painting class... the piece I created, I feel was based much off the imagery and how much I loved reading "Night Circus".