This book feels like a dream. It feels like one of those dreams that are so immersive they feel more real than the waking world. It is a dream that makes you forget your reality, and when you wake up and realize this fantasy of whimsy and magic was all fiction and imagination, you are overwhelmed with disappointment.
I understand why so many readers call The Night Circus one of their favorite books. The writing is beautiful, enchanting, and lush. The story is unique and mysterious and brimming with beautifully tragic characters and events. Lastly, of course, is the Night Circus itself. Never before have I been so entranced by a book’s setting. I found myself wishing countless times throughout the novel that I could attend this circus, that the Night Circus was a tangible place that could be touched and seen and smelled with the senses, rather than simply the imagination. I even sometimes felt inexplicably sad when I realized this was not the case. This is one of the few, non-classic novels I have read that I can call literature, in the way some movies must be called cinema. Mesmerizing!