The Night Circus

Novel by Erin Morgenstern

This book is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Admittedly, I read it too quickly. I always do. And I skipped ahead to the ending when I was about halfway through. I usually do that, too. But it's more than those reader-errors that make it tantalizingly confusing.

The storyline jumps around in time, not like in a Kate Morton book with multiple narrators and time periods, but like The Time Traveler's Wife, where it's all about one story and one set of characters but shows their lives at different times. You really must read the chapter titles.

No wonder my middle school student, who recommended it to me, is having a hard time understanding it.

Put off? Wait--the good side of the mystery, the tantalizing part, is still to come.

Also mysterious to me are the descriptions of the circus tents. See, this is about a circus that performs only at night, doesn't announce where it is going next, and is actually run by two dueling magicians who eventually fall in love (no plot spoilers there--it's all on the back cover). So the circus tents sometimes contain amazing but expected circus acts, and sometimes reveal mystical experiences like a wishing tree lit with candles or bottles of scents from your dreams or a vertical maze leading into the sky. And it's real magic, very Harry Potter-esque. Oh, and it's all in black and white and gray, often looking like ice or snow or white fire or pages torn from books or folded paper. The descriptions alone are mind boggling. I can see why it's being made into a movie--it'll be a visual masterpiece. As a book it's hard for me to picture sometimes.

The book also constantly reminded me of something I couldn't quite put my finger on. There are obvious Shakespeare references, to Prospero the Enchanter and Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. It also reminded me a little of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked this Way Comes (which in itself is a reference to Shakespeare). And I've already mentioned The Time Traveler's Wife and Harry Potter. But there's more to it than that--it just seems very familiar and yet elusive at the same time. Like the mazes and illusions and charms in the book itself. It just turns in on itself constantly.

Yet I liked it. I was drawn into the mystery, I liked the right characters and hated the right characters (don't you just despise when there's no one worth loving or hating in a book?). It was a little slow in the middle but the end galloped along like a gryphon on the enchanted carousel. And all along the way it gives you a spine tingling sense of something...something...well, watch the book trailer at the bottom of Erin Morgenstern's website and you'll see what I mean.

The Casual Vacancy

Novel by JK Rowling

See that image to the right? See how the picture of the author is firmly attached the image of the book?

That says it all.

If JK Rowling hadn't written this book, it would have gotten nowhere.

Like many Harry Potter fans, I was curious to see what her next book, especially an adult novel, would be like. And I tried hard not to judge it by the standards of Harry Potter. It's a totally different genre and audience, after all. But I saw quickly that even without comparing it unfairly to the genius world of Hogwarts, just by comparing it to other normal adult books I happen to like...I Hate This Book.

The title refers to the central plot, a forced election for an empty seat on a small town council in rural England, caused by the death of one of the town of Pagford's leading citizens, Barry Fairbrother. His last name is no coincidence--he's the only likable character in the book and that's probably because he's dead for all but a few pages, so he has no time to screw things up. Unlike his two best friends, his opponents on the town council, a woman secretly in love with him, and the teenage children of these adults, who all go out of their way to be inattentive, rude, or even cruel to the people they are supposed to love. The way the families treat each other is worse than the way the men running against each other for town council do. The plot is rife with back stabbing and sabotage, of both the election and their personal lives.

It's also completely about us versus them, teenagers versus adults, rich versus poor, liberal versus conservative. And as polarized as our nation is right now, I could have just logged on to Facebook to read that kind of vitriol.

And really, that's my main complaint: mean people. There's also lots of swearing, physical abuse, drug abuse, sex abuse, food abuse, suicide...not topics I enjoy reading about in such profound amounts. The few reviews I read that defended the book seemed to imply that some people are too squeamish and need to get over the swearing and get to the story. I can understand that; sometimes vivid characterization and realistic plots beg for a few swear words. Again, that's not my issue. I just don't like the characterization or plot. It's mean. It's depressing.

Bottom line: read if you're completely curious, which will be my motivation when I finally read Fifty Shades of Grey. But expect to be bummed out. And DON'T by any means let your Harry Potter fan kids read it. Just read a few pages and you'll see what I mean.