Pages

Sunday 15 January 2012

Coffee and Conversation - The Night Circus

I have a secret, and I'm almost scared to tell you.  No matter what happens, promise you'll still love me?  Wait, let me just take a deep breath and a deep swallow of Jack before I continue...

Okay.  Here we go.



There.  I said it.  It's now out in the open for all to see.


I've mentioned to others that while I enjoyed the premise of the book, and really enjoyed the vividness used in describing the characters, settings and details, I found the story itself anti-climatic, and a little boring. 

I'm definitely in the minority here, and I'm okay with that.  Not everyone enjoys every book - what a boring world that would be!  

So tell me - did you enjoy The Night Circus?  Why or why not?

Can you think of a book that you didn't enjoy, but seemingly everyone else raved about?  Vice versa?  Leave a comment and let me know!

10 comments:

  1. To continue with our discussion from Twitter some other books I didn't enjoy but everyone loved include:

    - Twilight (I see from your sidebar that we may agree on this one, haha).
    - The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (didn't hate, but didn't get what everyone was going crazy about)
    - The Help (more of a problem related to feminism, and racism)

    A book that I liked that a lot of people didn't was Sophia Kinsella's Twenties Girl. I will admit, for about the first half of the book, I didn't really like it either and was really frustrated, but sticking with it paid out in the end because I ended up loving it. It was the first book of her's that I read.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, and I believe most of what I have read by Nicolas Sparks (A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, and Dear John) I have greatly preferred the movie to, except for The Last Song, which I kind of enjoyed, but I haven't seen the movie to compare it to yet.

      Delete
    2. See, and it's funny .. I actually enjoyed the first Twilight book when it first came out, but then it got even goofier, and with that came the stark realization that it was all pretty goofy to begin with.

      I did love The Help, though.

      For Sophie Kinsella, I read one of her books and then never tried another because I was so turned off - maybe I should give Twenties Girl a try!

      Delete
  2. No worries! I had almost the exact same reasons for not liking the book as you did. I love, love, loved the imagery and premise, but there wasn't enough action at all. I mean, I understand that it was literary fantasy, and the lack of action comes with the genre, but...still. You know?

    I did end up giving the book two stars instead of one, just because of the fantastic writing and wonderful characters, but most of my review ended up pretty negative.

    I wanted to like the book, I really did. But it just wasn't to be.

    Renae @ Respiring Thoughts

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, I know! It really was fantastically written, but I just kept finding myself so bored, y'know?

    What's a book that you loved and others didn't seem to enjoy?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmm. I read Animal Farm for my Freshman English class. Turns out it's not a popular book with 14 year olds. Who woulda thought! And then I read Great Expectations and Lord of the Flies Sophomore year. Nobody liked those either.

    Honestly, there haven't been many. If it's a book for class, my peers will probably hate it and I'll probably like it. Otherwise, I read books that come recommended and tend to end up hating them, ;) I have almost 400 ratings on Goodreads and only 10 of them are 5 stars.

    What about you?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I loved Lord of the Flies. Another one we read in college was On the Beach by Neville Shute, which was my first time ever reading anything along the lines of post-apocalyptic - I, of course, was completely in love with it, while everyone else hated it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Room. I thought it was a good book but that it didn't quite deserve all the hype it received. I actually didn't like reading it from a 5 year olds point of view. I would have prefered to read some of it from the mom's.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ohhhh, Room. Good choice - it does have such mixed reviews, and all seem to be based on the POV. People either love it or hate it, it doesn't seem to garner much middle ground. I have it on my TBR list, and will have to move it up closer to the top of the pile so I can find out for myself which way to swing.

      Delete
  7. It just didn't ring true to me in the end.

    ReplyDelete