• The Night Circus

  • A Novel
  • By: Erin Morgenstern
  • Narrated by: Jim Dale
  • Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (29,113 ratings)

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The Night Circus  By  cover art

The Night Circus

By: Erin Morgenstern
Narrated by: Jim Dale
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Publisher's summary

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.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

©2011 Erin Morgenstern (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

" The Night Circus made me happy. Playful and intensely imaginative, Erin Morgenstern has created the circus I have always longed for, and she has populated it with dueling love-struck magicians, precocious kittens, hyper-elegant displays of beauty, and complicated clocks. This is a marvelous book." (Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife)
"Self-assured, entertaining debut that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic…. Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings." ( Kirkus Reviews)
"Debut author Morgenstern doesn't miss a beat in this smashing tale of greed, fate, and love... a giant, magical story destined for bestsellerdom. This is an electric debut on par with Special Topics in Calamity Physics." ( Publishers Weekly)

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What listeners say about The Night Circus

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    17,714
  • 4 Stars
    6,869
  • 3 Stars
    3,038
  • 2 Stars
    959
  • 1 Stars
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Performance
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    19,552
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    4,614
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
    344
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    15,623
  • 4 Stars
    5,991
  • 3 Stars
    2,903
  • 2 Stars
    1,043
  • 1 Stars
    610

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Dreamlike Experience to Savor

This story envelops the reader. I cannot think of another book I have so thoroughly relished. With each and every sentence the author invites you to feel, taste and smell the Night Circus.This circus is like nothing else, beyond imagination. Yet I could see myself there, and although the circus is in only black and white, I was immersed in color and texture. Listening to this story is like eating the most amazing meal in the most beautiful placed you can imagine while sitting next to someone with whom you are infatuated. What a wonderful dream, I want to return and feel it all again, so sad when the book ended. And the narration brings it all alive, kudos to both author and narrator.

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284 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The circus of your dreams

This was one of the most wonderful books I've ever heard. A feast for the ears. The story is fantastically imaginative, the prose is richly visual, I could see all the details of the circus and smell the popcorn and caramel. I wanted to visit the circus myself! The narrator does a wonderful job bringing everything to life. I didn’t want it to end. Once it was over, I couldn’t wait to listen again. This is everything an audiobook should be - try it, you won't be sorry.

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277 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Something about this book bothered me.

It was a pleasant diversion. And well crafted. But for some reason, I was not pulled into this book as others have been. Jim Dale's performance, as usual, was great. But perhaps I would have liked it more if it had been read by a woman. Maybe the thing that bothers me most about this book is that the premise was more mechanical than emotional. Maybe I did not cotton to the rather cryptic and largely unexplained (until the end, and even then not very well explained) bargain struck at the beginning of the book. Maybe the characters were less than three-dimensional. Maybe it just felt like it was made up as it went along ??? like a children's impromptu story. I don't know. All I do know is that The Night Circus did not thrill me. And I really did want to be thrilled.

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213 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

This novel did not match the hype around it.

Not sure what the hype is about. It was a really detailed book with a lot of descriptions and some were really interesting, some not so much. It just ended up being OK. Not great, not wonderful. Not sure I would read it again though. And I found that disappointing. I think a circus setting is marvelous and the idea of magical people controlling it was interesting too but was never made into anything that wowed me. The storey disintegrated into a love story about two people we really didn't know much about personality wise and didn't care that much about. They were not the most interesting people at the circus but the interesting ones didn't get their stories told at all. Over all it was like a novel trying to pull in trends from other books that were big hits. Steampunk, wizards and magic, forbidden love, etc, etc. It was almost like the writer was trying so hard to hit all the trends that they forgot to write a good story. The descriptions of some of the stuff were interesting but descriptions of settings do not a good novel make unless they make the STORY more interesting. This just didn't grab me. But the narrator was great!

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164 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

I had high hopes for this one - unfortunately.

I don't normally read these kinds of books, but the reviews were great. A lot of listeners loved the book. I didn't. The story had a lot of promise, but the characters that ended up being the ones focused on had a good beginning, a poor conclusion and a soft middle-story. The descriptions were good, but didn't add too much to the plot of the story. There was also a weird digression into the occult that added nothing to the story and was a little annoying. The narrator was excellent; the story itself had promise. The descriptions were good but didn't build the story as well as they could have.
For me, this was a case of a bad fit. It's a case of "everything is not for everyone." You may enjoy this book. I wouldn't recommend the book, though.

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125 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Deliciously Imaginative

This beautifully descriptive book could not come out during a better season when the imagination is already a tingle for Halloween. This world created by Ms. Morgenstern rolls out the red carpet for characters are rich and strong in their own right. This is a book that will always be on my iPod.

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96 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Wonder and Curiousity

I just finished the Night Circus. The story style reminded me a little of Neil Gaiman, who I think is a wonderful writer in the genre of the "curiousier and curiousier." This story weaves around you from the start, and in the end leaves you wishing to open your mind to all sorts of possibilities. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

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95 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

It does feel magical

The narrator made this book for me. The story itself is a pretty cool, I like the concept and it was just plain fun to listen to. I think the pace of the story slows down a lot of times and as much as some of the other characters were developed, I could see greater development still being done or more side plots being created to compensate for the rather slow pace of the story sometimes. Still though, fascinating book to listen to and you really do get a sense that you are in a magical place...

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90 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Some Magical, Some Not So Magical

There is a lot to enjoy in this book, but also much that fell flat despite my expectations especially after reading the glowing reviews.

The Magical:

Descriptions of the circus were truly amazing. How beautifully written it was with the sights and sounds and especially, the smells. How unique to focus on the scents and how powerful it created the reality.

Overall the writing was very well done.

The Not-So-Magical:

While many reviewers were taken by the depth of the characters, I found just the opposite. For the most part, they were pretty one dimensional as they interacted with each other and in the realm of the circus.

The competition went nowhere. A huge build-up throughout the book that I expected to culminate in an apocalypse of some kind, but only quietly and gently ended.

And I had no idea about Jim Dale narrating the Harry Potter series, but I found this book to be very reminiscent of Harry Potter in tone and style.

But this last point seems to differ with every other reviewer. I found Jim Dale's narration to be rather difficult to hear the story or the characters. His tone sounded sinister and I kept hearing sinister characters and bad things about to happen. His voice especially for the female characters was terrible. Sorry.

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83 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Something Wicked and Mr. Norrell

This is a debut novel that bounces from descriptive dreamy happening to another. While it is a feast for the senses, it is not much of a connected story. It starts out interesting enough, with two characters reminiscent of JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL and an interesting bet involving two kids, Celica and Marco. After an hour or so, the structure of the story falls apart, as the author tries too hard to rewrite SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. This was written in 2011 and Erin has yet to write another book.

Pass on this, but if she writes another book, check that out, as she shows much promise.

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82 people found this helpful