★★★.5
3.5 stars is generous.
I’m honestly quite disappointed by this one. Halfway through, I was contemplating giving up but I saw a review on Goodreads that said the ending was worth it. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. I think this book promised a lot more than what it actually delivered lol. I really wanted to like it and I remained patient, waiting for anything to actually happen, but I was let down.
The plot revolves around a challenge between two magicians (?). I’m not really sure what to call them, since it’s never properly defined. But we’ll call them magicians. Celia and Marco. They were forced into this challenge by their teachers. For Celia, that was her father Hector (also known as Prospero the Enchanter—very whimsical) (also, if I had a penny for every Tempest reference…). For Marco, it was this man named Alexander who took him under his wing. During their childhoods, the two prepared for this challenge by learning magic. The reason for the challenge was that Hector and Alexander wanted to prove their views or something. And this isn’t the first challenge they’ve had. Hector values talent while Alexander values traditional hard work. So, Celia and Marco were instructed in very different ways.
The POV changed a lot in this book. Like, a LOT. I found it a bit unnecessary. Especially Bailey or the clock guy with the German name I can’t remember. I get that Bailey ended up saving the circus or whatever, but even that whole plotline didn’t make sense to me.
This rich guy, Chandresh, creates the Circe de Rêves and it becomes really popular. It’s this circus with a B&W color scheme that is only open at night. The circus is supposed to be the setting for this challenge between Celia and Marco. The two keep adding magical things to the circus to compete. But the guidelines of the challenge were super vague. Someone’s gonna win at some point and no one really knows who decides the winner. They reveal at some point that one wins the challenge when the other dies, but why would anyone die? The way they described the challenge, I had expected at least one cool magical fight. Especially after stressing Celia’s ability to heal herself. But no cool fight. Instead they fell in love??
I really don’t get how they fell in love. Like, okay, they were somewhat cute. But I don’t get what it was that made them love each other. They hadn’t even interacted much when Marco suddenly proclaimed his love for Celia. He was Chandresh’s assistant and she was the illusionist of the circus. There was little to no interaction between the two. Not to mention that Marco literally had a girlfriend the whole time. I felt so bad for her tbh. Justice for Isobel. Marco was a shitty boyfriend. And I don’t know how Celia let Marco just cheat on Isobel. We really couldn’t have Marco be a decent guy and actually break up with Isobel before starting a secret relationship with Celia?
I feel like everything was just extremely vague, like it wasn’t planned through properly. The entire magic system was explained in such abstract terms that it felt like the author was intentionally trying to confuse the reader. Plus, the challenge was vague as well. And the magical force behind the circus. The whole time I was waiting for everything to suddenly make sense or have some sort of explanation but nope. Things just remained open-ended. I didn’t really understand Bailey’s role either. It’s just that he loved the circus so much? And those twins and their abilities. The boy can “see” people’s stories. Like, what? Can things get any vaguer? And the girl just sees things and never offers any explanation. All of these things seemed poorly executed to me.
And I didn’t understand Isobel’s protection thing that she had over the circus. Nothing made sense. Nothing.
I started doubting my reading comprehension skills. But I’ve read so many different kinds of books with different styles, and I’ve never been this confused and dissatisfied. There were so many descriptions. And I’m not going to complain about the detail, but if you wanna be that detailed, then at least explain the things that are happening properly.
Throughout this entire book, I felt like I was just perpetually waiting. Waiting for explanations or something to make sense. Waiting for the plot to actually progress instead of just going through conversations from different POVs. Everything seemed so irrelevant tbh.
The ending was extremely lacking for me. I was just left with a feeling of “that’s it??”. Everything was predictable and extremely boring. I had such high hopes for this book and it was a major letdown and, frankly, a waste of time. I gained no insight from reading this whatsoever and was just left with a feeling of frustration. The entire time, it felt like we were building something up—an epic fight to the death between the two lovers, maybe—but nope. Just an overromanticized circus that ran on the power of love and friendship, apparently.
I really wouldn’t recommend this book. It doesn’t get better. It’s not bad, and it’s not good. It’s just a boring book where not much really happens for most of it. The stakes were extremely low, the motives unclear, and the rules vague. I was intrigued by the concept, but it wasn’t done well at all. To anyone reading this, save your time and don’t bother. I’m sure some will enjoy this, somehow, but I really couldn’t stand it.
