Reading Challenge – 22% completed.
Calendar check and it’s the middle of March 2017. So how’s my new reading challenge going? Well I’ve chalked up two more books.
Book #10 – The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Well I’ve finally got round to reading this book, which has been on my radar for quite some time, and boy from nearly the first page it had me gripped.
This book is everything I hoped ‘Dr Strange and Mr Norrell’ would of been, many moons ago when I read that. This, similar to that, is a story about two protégés (Celia and Marco) of two mysterious magicians, trained up and set up to play a mysterious game against each other. This is all set out in the Cirque des Reves – a circus which arrives and departs without warning and then only opens up at night. Everything within the circus is black or white. And like normal circus’s there are acrobats, contortionists, big cat tamers but the Night Circus is no conventional spectacle with a bonfire that burns pure white and which never goes out, as well as some tents that contain clouds and others containing ice.
I fell in love with the magic and awe of the circus, as all of it’s visitors do, you as a reader feel as though you are really there, wandering through the circus, peering into the tents. You can feel the chilly night air, smell the smoke from the bonfire and the taste of the caramel apples. The short descriptions throughout the story, of the different individual tents scattered between the chapters for example, are marvellous. The world of the Cirque des Reves is dreamlike and spellbinding.
And bubbling in the background is the romance and love story of the two protégés, which isn’t something I’m normally into, but I found bearable and nicely done in this book. I cared about both characters, although Marco took some warming up too, so overall a very good, spell binding book.
5 out of 5 stars from me.
Book #11 – Octopus Pirate by Jane Yates
It looks harsh giving this two stars, but that, as per Goodreads is classed as ‘ok’ which is what I think this book/story is.
In the book we follow the life of Coco, where various tragedies befall him from the offset of his life, from the beginning his mother falling off a ship and drowning as giving birth to him, to being rescued by an Octopus and placed in safety of a nun on an island. And to avoid too many spoilers more tragedies follow as young Coco has to survive life with some deformities that make him stand out but likewise interesting and special.
So what’s the problem. Well this is a nice, straight forward story that does dash along at some pace and I think that’s partly my problem with it and why I didn’t buy into it as much as others. Yes, there is the odd grammatical error but the writing does feel rushed to me as the author, I suspect, is in a rush to get her ideas down on paper. And there are a lot of ideas: Tragedies, Pinocchio style character, deformities with special abilities, steam punk, time travel, monsters, pirates and all clearly building up to the next book.
So a nice, little heart warming story, straight forwardly written with a tad to much crammed into it for my liking.
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Right then, what next??
