The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I first read The Night Circus in 2013 and I instantly fell in love with it. The writing was stunning, the story was well-crafted and complex, and world-building was completely immersive. I had never read anything quite like it, and it instantly became a favorite of mine. When I was designing my Then vs. Now Reading Challenge, I knew that I wanted this novel to be a part of it. I started my reread this month, excited to lose myself in Morgenstern's magical world once again.

The plot follows the story of two magicians unknowingly locked in a battle of skills by their magical teachers. Their battleground is a mysterious circus that appears only at night and is filled with spectacles that defy belief- a garden made entirely of ice, a maze with more twists and turns than could possibly fit in one tent, a landscape full of frolicking paper animals and more. As the magicians display their talents to the delight and amazement of the circus patrons, they are irresistibly drawn to one another and fall desperately in love. When the true nature of their competition is revealed, both struggle to find a way to be together in spite of the rules binding them. To reveal more details would spoil the mysterious vibe of the story; it's best to head into this book not knowing too much ahead of time.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about The Night Circus is its lush, descriptive passages. The imagery in this book is incredible. Morgenstern has created a world rich in magical details. It's very unusual for me to enjoy descriptive sections in books because I am generally much more interested in the plot of a story than the atmosphere. However, in this case I was completely hooked on drinking in the beauty of each scene. There were many passages I enjoyed, but the image that sticks in my mind the most is the illusion Marco creates of a ship made of books floating on a sea of ink. I have never wanted to step inside the pages of a book to see something for myself so much before. The story is set at the turn of the 20th century, and the old fashioned clothing and architecture adds to the picturesque ambiance. In fact, the whole setting of the story, and especially the circus itself, is another character in the book, growing and changing in unpredictable and brilliant ways. All this description does slow the story down, but in a way that feels like you are savouring a good story. I couldn't get enough of it.

The romance between Marco and Celia is similarly well done. Although the conceit of the story has them separated for most of the time, Morgenstern makes the times they are together passionate enough to make up for the long absences. Their feelings for each other felt real and I was pulling for them to find a way to be together. I also enjoyed the secondary character Bailey's story, especially the idea that he didn't have to be particularly special to be useful, he just had to care enough. At one point Celia tells him, "You're not destined or chosen, I wish I could tell you that you were if that would make it easier, but it's not true. You're in the right place at the right time, and you care enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that's enough." It's one of the harder truths in life that we generally aren't quite as special as we think we are, but I do believe that effort and care can make us special, just like Bailey.

I loved The Night Circus when I read it the first time, and I think I loved it even more on this reread. The creativity Morgenstern shows in its pages is unparalleled and I enjoyed slipping into the magical, intricate world she created. Any lover of whimsy and fantasy would feel right at home in The Night Circus. It's a slow burn that is totally worth the time. I'm excited to read Morgenstern's second novel, The Starless Sea next, and see if I enjoy it as much as this one.


Challenge Tally
Then vs. Now: 3/27 

Total Books Read in 2020: 9

January Wrap Up

I haven't done monthly reading wrap ups in a few years, but I'm thinking about bringing the practice back for 2020 so that I can keep better track of my book ratings. I'm going to give it a shot this month and see how I like it.

I finished eight total novels in January. Here's the breakdown:

The Green Ray by Jules Verne (4/5 stars)
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier (5/5 stars)
The Harp of Kings by Juliet Marillier (2/5 stars)
The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller (4/5 stars)
Trinkets by Kirsten Smith (2/5 stars)
White Jacket by Herman Melville (2/5 stars)
Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (3/5 stars)
The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (4/5 stars)

While I'm happy with the amount of books I was able to read, this was a mixed bag for me quality-wise. There were high points and low points throughout the month. I really enjoyed both of the nonfiction books I read, The Green Ray, and of course, my reread of Daughter of the Forest was fantastic. Everything else, though, was only okay.

Not counting the reread, I think The Green Ray was my January favorite. It had all the usual humor and adventure of a Jules Verne novel, plus one of the sweetest endings in the world. My least favorite was The Harp of Kings. It fell far short of what I know and love about Juliet Marillier's writing, and contained several elements that annoyed me.

My most surprising read was definitely Venus in Furs. It was a scandalous classic that still felt scandalous today. I knew beforehand that this book is where the term 'masochist' comes from, but I didn't anticipate it being so spicy! I won't be forgetting Severin and his whip anytime soon.

My most forgettable read was Trinkets. I read that only a few weeks ago, and I can barely remember it. If I didn't have my review here on the blog, I would probably have totally forgotten it by now. There just wasn't anything special to hang onto in its pages.

So while January wasn't exactly a bad month for reading, I'm hoping for a bit more success in February. I'd like to read more books at four or five stars, although I can't really control that. I'm also hoping that my Then vs. Now selection will be more impressive. I'm going to be rereading The Night Circus, then trying out The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. It would be nice to like both of them this time around.

Here's my complete February TBR:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
Black Boy by Richard Wright
The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

Of course, I'm hoping to be able to read a few books beyond these, but those are my main goals. A new favorite might be hidden somewhere in that list. I'm excited to start the month and find out.

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

One of my reading goals for 2020 is to read one nonfiction book every month. I already read The Dionne Quintuplets for January, but I decided to pick up another nonfiction book a little bit early. I teach 8th grade language arts, and the next unit of study my school is working on is literary nonfiction. The 57 Bus is one of the novels available for our students to read. Coincidentally, I have been wanting to read this book for a while now, so I decided to start reading alongside my kids.

The 57 Bus tells the true story of Sasha and Richard, two teenagers whose lives changed forever on a public bus in 2013. While riding from high school one afternoon, Richard, at the encouragement of a few friends, held a lighter up to the edge of Sasha's skirt as they slept, completely oblivious to what was going on. Richard assumed that the skirt would smoke a little bit, and Sasha would wake up and stomp it out. Instead, however, the skirt erupted into flames, causing horrific third degree burns all over Sasha's legs.

 Biologically, Sasha was born a male, but identifies as agender (and uses they/them pronouns). To Richard, Sasha looked like a boy in a skirt, which prompted his decision to "prank" them. As a result, he was charged as an adult with two hate crimes, the combination of which could put him into jail for life. The novel chronicles the crime itself and the aftermath, giving the perspectives of both Richard and Sasha as they work to recover from what happened. Also included are chapters containing information on the many social issues tied up with the case, such as the history of charging teenagers as adults, the incarceration rates for African American youths, statistics about the prevalence of hate crimes, and a glossary of gender/sexuality terminology.

On its surface, The 57 Bus, is a story about two teenagers wrapped up in a horrible, senseless crime. Underneath, however, it's an education in the flaws present in the criminal justice system, LGBTQIA rights, and the power of forgiveness and understanding. This is the kind of nonfiction perfect for young readers. It both teaches about an event and nudges them towards a increased understanding of important issues in their world. The structure is also attractive to young readers, with several short chapters to keep the action moving. To mix things up, occasionally a chapter will use a different format, such as a text message transcript or a free verse poem, all of which will keep kids engaged.

In addition to these points in its favor, The 57 Bus is just plain interesting. I was engaged from page one and moved through the novel quickly, anxious to see what the outcomes for Sasha and Richard would be. Dashka Slater tells the story masterfully, and maintains a nice balance between information about the crime and the background information necessary to place it in its proper context. She also does a nice job humanizing both Sasha and Richard. I initially thought I wouldn't be feeling too much sympathy for Richard throughout the text, but Slater does enough explaining about his background and feelings to help the reader understand him. That's not to say that Slater excuses his actions, because she does not, but she does provide an explanation for why he behaves the way he does that the reader can empathize with.

Overall, I thought The 57 Bus was a wonderful story for both young adult and adult readers alike. Its blend of information and social justice combined to provide a truly engaging reading experience. This is one book that I would recommend to anybody, and I'm so glad to have included it in my True Books 2020 Challenge.


Challenge Tally
True Books 2020: 2/12

Total Books Read in 2020: 8

Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Okay, this is an odd one. Bear with me.

I first heard about Venus in Furs from a Dover Publications catalog. I saw from the little blurb that this classic novel was "controversial" in its day and its author's name was where the word masochist comes from. That was all I needed to know, honestly. I loaded it onto my Kindle and stuck it on my Classics Club list in the "Wildcard" category, because it seemed to belong there more than anywhere else. I finally got around to reading it last week.

The plot concerns a young European man named Severin von Kusiemski. He is nursing a secret desire to be completely dominated and controlled by a woman, and he finally finds the perfect person to fulfill that desire in the beautiful Wanda von Dunajew, a young widow living in the rooms above him. After spending some time getting to know Wanda, Severin becomes completely obsessed with her and begs her to become his mistress and treat him like a slave. Wanda is intrigued by the concept and agrees to give it a try. She turns out to be a natural at it, and delights in controlling Severin. She employs both verbal abuse and a whip to shame, humiliate, and excite him. 

The relationship between the pair intensifies over time. They eventually enter into an official master/slave relationship, and Wanda has Severin sign a contract giving up all of his rights to her. They even relocate to Italy so that they can live freely in a place where they aren't known to anyone. Eventually, however, Wanda begins developing feelings for a different man, and their taboo arrangement begins to fall apart before Severin's eyes.

Most of the time, when you read a classic that was considered "shocking" when it was originally published, it doesn't exactly feel shocking anymore. Not so with Venus in Furs. It is still pretty shocking today. I felt like I was reading something I shouldn't, despite that fact that this was published back in 1870. All of Severin and Wanda's activities, like the master/slave contract, the whipping, the bondage,etc., could have come out of a modern story. I was surprised that people engaged in this type of relationship way back in the 1800s, and it was interesting to see it play out in the time period. As it was only 160 pages, I finished the whole thing in one sitting, fueled by a morbid curiosity to see what salacious thing would happen next.

Despite its short length and spicy content, there was a surprising amount of depth to the novel as well, particularly in Severin and Wanda's attitudes behind their relationship. There is a lot one could analyze about why Severin was interested in being dominated and why Wanda agrees to it. Severin starts out completely idolizing Wanda, but after his relationship with her ends, his feelings shift dramatically. He becomes bitter and cruel to all women, going to far as to tell a friend, "In spite of all the advances of civilization, woman has remained as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the nature of a savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according to the impulse that dominates at the moment...Don't ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you love." He ends the novel saying that, "“The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped,
deserves to be whipped.”

It felt strange to see a character that started out completely idolizing and wanting to be subservient to a woman end up with this attitude. He comes to embrace a completely sexist worldview and essentially kink-shames himself. Even Wanda expresses views that mix strength and sexism, once telling Severin that, “I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his inate strength. And every man—I know this very well—as soon as he falls in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love permanently would be he before whom I should have to kneel.” Yikes. I'm sure that someone well versed in human sexuality could write pages of analysis on this relationship. Alas, my knowledge in this area is too thin to attempt anything deep. It must suffice for me to say that the book was interesting and fostered a lot of thought about topics that I don't often think about.

The introduction to my version of the book asked the reader to keep an open mind while making their way through the text, and I think that's a good bit of advice for anyone interested in reading Venus in Furs. This was an enjoyable and different kind of read. It didn't end up being a special favorite, but it was certainly memorable.


Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#91 on my list): 64/100 

Total Books Read in 2020: 7

White Jacket by Herman Melville

I first came across White Jacket several years ago in a gigantic used bookstore in Florida. I hadn't heard of the story before, but the cover looked cool and I recognized Herman Melville's name, of course. I read Moby Dick in high school and really enjoyed it, so I figured I'd give this one a try. I put it on the American Authors section of my Classics Club list, and since it fit into the 19th Century Classic category of the Back to the Classics Challenge, I decided to pick it up this month.

Based on the cover, summary on the back, and my previous experience with Melville, I went into my reading assuming that this would be an adventure-at-sea type of novel. I ended up being entirely wrong. Accordingly, I must warn anyone reading this that a dreadfully uninspired and unrefined review is written below. I am going to do what I generally try to avoid when talking about classic novels; I'm going to whine about it being boring.

White Jacket is essentially a collection of short essays about what life was like for a seaman serving on a Man-of-War in the nineteenth century. Each chapter is narrated by a nameless protagonist, known only by the nickname White Jacket, who is a main-top man on the U.S.S. Neversink. Throughout the course of the novel, he discusses many different aspects of his life in the Navy. Everything, from the mildly interesting to the completely mundane, is described in great detail. Topics such as sleeping arrangements, meal prep, and leisure time are covered, along with several chapters detailing White Jacket's personal criticisms about the rules and regulations of the U.S. Navy during that time period.

These observations all take place during the Neversink's return voyage home, which is a fairly uneventful trip. As such, there are not many scenes of action in the story. Indeed, there is no real plot to the novel at all. It truly is just a series of musings about life on a frigate. Melville wrote White Jacket based on his personal experiences serving on the U.S.S. United States, and it definitely reads like he just took his journal entries and memories from that time and inserted a handful of fictional characters into them. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but this goes on for over 500 pages, and that much information without a plot behind it starts to feel very, very long.

By the time I got to the last few hundred pages of this, I was desperate to finish. The writing wasn't bad at all, in fact, Melville's prose is eminently readable, but it just became way too much of the same thing. There were too many descriptions of banal topics and not enough characters or story to get engaged in. There were occasional flashes of interest spread throughout the text, but for every chapter with a dangerous storm or a gruesome leg amputation, there were twenty chapters about doing laundry, playing checkers, and visiting the barber. It was just not a fun read for me.

The novel is probably the most famous for its condemnation of corporal punishment in the Navy, most specifically the practice of flogging. This form of discipline was applied liberally on the ship, even just for minor offenses. It is clear that Melville abhorred flogging, and he includes several chapters about it, in which he argues that it is cruel, unconstitutional, and immoral. His arguments were so persuasive that this novel actually helped to get flogging banned in the Navy. He raises several other objections to the way the Navy is run throughout the text as well, and expounds at length about hypocrisy, the abuse of power, and the pointlessness of certain traditions. It seems that the overall point of White Jacket was not just to describe the life of an able seaman, but to offer suggestions on how to improve the Navy. These observations and critiques were interesting to a point, but like the other chapters in the novel, they became tiresome after a while. It is pretty cool that this book actually inspired real social changed though.

This wasn't a completely bad reading experience for me. There were some sections that stood out from the rest, the writing was solid and very descriptive, and any chapters concerning the protagonist's seemingly cursed white jacket were good for a laugh. There were even some bits of it that reminded me of themes from Moby Dick (which Melville would go on to write the following year). On the whole, however, I will not remember this novel as one of my favorites. It was just not the type of classic that I love. However, I always value the chance to experience the works of the past, so I'm not sorry I gave it a try.


Challenge Tally
Back to the Classics 2020 (19th Century Classic): 2/12
Classics Club (#81 on my list): 63/100 

Total Books Read in 2020: 6

Trinkets by Kirsten Smith

I wasn't planning on reading Trinkets this month (or ever), but one of my students recently read it and offered to loan it to me. It's my general policy to always say yes when that happens, so here we are. This young adult novel about a trio of teenage shoplifters was originally published in 2013, but a Netflix series based on the novel that premiered last year has revived interest in it. I hadn't heard of either the series or the novel before last week, so I went into my reading with no expectations.

The story revolves around three high school students that meet at a Shoplifter's Anonymous meeting. Each of the girls were caught stealing in separate incidents and are required to attend these meetings as a consequence for their actions. They are from very different groups in their school, and would not associate with each other under normal circumstances. Moe is your typical "tough girl," Tabitha runs with the popular crowd, and Elodie is the new girl in town. Despite these differences, however, the crucible of the SA meetings pushes them together and they grudgingly start to become friends.

Rather than attempt to reform their ways, the girls decide to set a challenge for themselves. They start competing to see who can steal the best items. Throughout their competition, they start to become closer and support each other though their various troubles at home. Eventually, they start to learn that the social divisions holding them apart at school don't mean very much, and the thrill of the steal is ultimately a hollow, and temporary, feeling that can't fix the pain they are feeling in their personal lives.

Trinkets was an entirely okay book. It was a very fast paced and quick read, taking me about three hours to make my way through the whole thing. The narration alternates between Moe, Tabitha, and Elodie, and each girl does maintain a unique voice throughout the story. The plot is fairly straightforward, with one pretty neat twist thrown in that I enjoyed.

Where the book falls short is in its brevity. Nothing is explored in very much detail, so the story feels shallow. When I read young adult contemporary novels, I like to see a little more character development and intricacy in the plot. The quick pace made everything go too fast. The girls became friends too fast, competed to steal items too fast, and solved their problems too fast. The shoplifting isn't even described thoroughly. With the exception of one or two instances, the girls just show up with stolen merchandise at their meeting place. To be fair though, maybe Kirsten Smith was trying to avoid writing a "how to steal" guide for teens. That wouldn't be a good look for her.

Despite the speed of the story, Trinkets was still an entertaining read. It's a good novel for a younger audience. It will keep teen readers engaged and give them the joy of finishing a novel they like quickly. That's the kind of experience that keeps kids reading, so I don't have any big problems with this novel's shortcomings. It was inoffensive and fairly interesting, and now I have something I can recommend to my students. I'd call that a mild success.

Challenge Tally

Total Books Read in 2020: 5

The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller

For my first nonfiction read of 2020, I decided to try The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets. This young adult novel caught my eye in Barnes and Noble a few months back and has been in the back of my mind ever since. I'd never heard of the Dionne Quintuplets before reading it, but the inside flap of the book sounded fascinating. I knew I wanted to pick this one up early on in my True Books 2020 Challenge, so I started in on it this week.

The novel tells the story of Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie Dionne, a set of quintuplets born in 1934 to a working class family in Ontario. Weighing a total of 13 pounds at birth, the girls were not expected to survive, but due to the vigilance of a dedicated medical team and plenty of donations from their public, they all managed to pull through. The sisters quickly became international celebrities, with tourists from all over the world writing them letters, sending them gifts, and even driving to the Dionne property to try and catch a glimpse of them through their windows.

In an effort to protect the girls from both their overly-adoring fans and enterprising hucksters looking to exploit them for financial gain, the government of Ontario seized custody of them and placed them in a custom-built hospital directly across the street from their parents' tiny farmhouse. For the next nine years of their lives, the quints were put on display to the public. Visitors to the hospital could watch them at play through one-way viewing screens, and thousands showed up each month to do so. In addition to the public displays, the quints' images were used in advertising, they did voicework on radio programs, and they even appeared in a few movies. The money they earned was put into a trust fund for them, which helped support their family and pay for the team of doctors and nurses that cared for them. They made their once-poor family very wealthy, but all was not well underneath the happy, sweet image their government-appointed guardians promoted.

Throughout the nine years the girls lived away from their family, their parents were engaged in a bitter fight with the government and their medical team to try and get them back. They eventually succeeded in bringing their daughters home, but the toll the fight took on everyone was tremendous. The girls found themselves unable to relate to their parents and other siblings, and their parents' frustration at their reticence to engage manifested in all different kinds of abuse. To complicate matters further, the girls' sheltered upbringing left them unable to function normally in society. Even the simplest of things, from shopping for their own clothing to going on dates, had to be learned from scratch once they became adults. Their struggles did not even improve with time, as leaving home, attending college, and starting their own families was fraught with difficulty for them. The Miracle &Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets is a detailed record of a very strange and sad little chapter of history, in which government overreach, poverty, and greed came together in a way that spelled disaster for five innocent children.

This book was absolutely fascinating, and I raced through it in just a couple of days. Sara Miller's narration is detailed and well-researched. Her writing style is appropriately clear and straightforward enough for a young adult audience, and there are many pictures included throughout the text to give readers additional context for the events of the story. Each chapter is titled using the actual titles of old newspaper and magazine articles regarding the quints, which I thought was a very nice touch. It helped reinforce the idea that every detail of this family's life was being reported on and consumed by the public, even into their adult years.

Miller also succeeds at presenting a balanced account of the Dionne's situation, explaining the viewpoints of the Dionne family, the doctors and nurses that cared for the girls, the government officials involved in their care, and, of course, the quints themselves. Looking at each of these viewpoints was one of the most engaging aspects of the book for me, because it really leads you on a roller coaster of emotions as the story develops. At first you feel sorry for the Dionne parents and outraged at the government overstepping their bounds, but once the girls go home, you start to lose sympathy for Mama and Poppa Dionne very quickly and wonder if government guardianship wasn't the right choice after all. Then, you start to question what things might have been like if the government had never intervened in the first place. However, after that, you remember that the girls would never had survived their infancy without that government interference.  The situation is complex and it's tough to pull any simple conclusions from it, especially since many of the people involved were making decisions based on what they thought was in the best interest of the children. It was interesting to grapple with questions of responsibility and ethics while reading.

While I did really enjoy learning about the Dionne Quintuplets as an adult reader, I did question Miller's decision to write this as a young adult book. I do not think that the first half of the story will hold teen readers' interest for long. While it is well-written, it is fairly dry. As a young reader, you'd have to have some pretty well-developed reading stamina to make it through all the descriptions of the girls' lives in the hospital and the endless tug of war between their parents and their medical care team. I also think that a lot of teens lack the background knowledge required to pick up on the deeper themes of the story. A lot of what happens to the Dionne Quints happens because they were born poor, and most of the students I teach aren't exactly well-versed in the politics of classism and poverty. I teach eighth grade. I know that most of my students would be bored by this.

Furthermore, the second half of the story gets into some very tough topics that not all young readers might be ready to process. There are no real warning that these topics are coming, either. There was a point in the novel where my jaw dropped open and my heart sank into my stomach at what these girls went through. This is definitely a book for older teens, and you probably wouldn't think that just from looking at the cover and reading the summary. As the plot moves on, things only get worse for everyone involved in the story. There is not a happy ending here, and not a lot of lessons to take away from it. The story is very interesting, of course, but I don't think it's necessarily the best topic for young adult nonfiction. So, after reading, I was left curious as to who exactly this book is really for. it would be a special young adult reader indeed that is able to maintain their interest all the way through and have a sophisticated enough understanding of the world to truly engage with the topic.

Despite that, however, I really enjoyed The Miracle & Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets. It was a detailed and thorough account of an odd piece of history I had never heard of before. While the story was a sad one, it does provide a lot of interesting points to mull over about poverty, parenting, greed, human rights, fame, and ethics. I probably would not recommend this book to teens, but I would definitely recommend it to adults who are interested in learning about the Dionne Quints. This was a great way to start off my True Books 2020 Challenge. I'm realizing that I actually miss reading nonfiction, and I'm already looking forward to picking up another nonfiction novel next month.



Challenge Tally
True Books 2020: 1/12

Total Books Read in 2020: 4