The circus is a magical event. Most people only go to one or two in their lives. When they are very young, teenage years with friends, or taking your own child there. You see them in the distance; large tents striped in the colors red, white or yellow. One or several tents, the circuses serves fun for the whole family. From bears on unicycles, to terrifying clowns, all the way to acrobats and magicians. Those seemed to be the basics of a circus. Which is why when Le Cirque des Reves comes to town, it is an unordinary event.

Le Cirque des Reves is French for The Circuses of Dreams as it is only open from when the sun goes down till it goes up again.  The circus is made up of two colors: black and white. Everything for the tents to the circus people's outfits to the color of the flames at the bonfire are either black or white. There are several tents to the circus, with new ones keep being added. From the Ice Garden, Wishing Tree which are new, to the old and loveable tents like the Fortune Teller and the Illusions.  All of these tents travel the world without signs, or anyone knowing where they will land next. You would be walking by a normally empty field, yet this morning the circus would be set up. Next week it will be gone until reports show its somewhere thousands miles away. That is the true magic of Le Cirque des Reves.

The true magic of Le Cirque des Reves is not the tents, but the people themselves. The book starts off with one of our main stars Celia when she was six. She and her father are both illusions, but what they do is more than an illusion. Some call it magic, they prefer to call it manipulation. Where Celia father was harsh on her, he was doing it all for… not love but for the game. Yes a game. Where he and another illusionist pit their students against each other, to see which was survives. Bounded together by a ring the games goes on for years, with the only ending being in death of one. Yet her opponent remains a mystery. Celia spends years training to become a better “illusions” with her father’s harsh methods of particle teaching. Yet she manages to withstand the training and move out on her own after her father’s passing. Celia then is off to find work, and at none other than the illusionist tryout for Le Cirque des Reves. Having her father known to all, Celia dazzles the judges and gets the job. There she meets many interesting people and literally becomes the heart of the circus. The circus is the root of the problem. It is where she meets her opponent and has to battle them to death. It is where she falls in love, disobey her father, and eventually passes on to a new world only illusionist have even heard about.

Erin Morgenstern did a fantastic job with this one of a kind book. The story line is fantastic and so different that you have no predictions on what will happen next. The time jumping is a little strange and confusing, same with the switching of points of views. At parts it did not flow as each chapter change brought you in a completely different setting and time. The book was hard to get into at first. It was not till around a hundred pages in did I get the writing concept. And yes I’ll agree that the start is extremely boring but do not give up. Soon it becomes a captivating book that you will never want to put down. It had the best ending that could be hated and love which just tops off this novel.