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In the several years since this novel was released, there have been 4,700 reviews on Amazon (I love amazonsmile.com so I can donate the tiniest bit to the Non-GMO Project, but you can choose from many, many more charities as well). In that time, it’s faced quite mixed reviews – very “black and white”, I might even say (ha!). In other words, you either love it or you loathe it. I would never say that I’ve hated a book, rather I could never understand how some books could ever be published at all (perhaps on merit, or on the promise of the idea?…).
It is a unique story, though, and not a complete waste of time. Although the visual and olfactory descriptions are superb, it does tend to drag on. And on. Yes, I know that the circus smells of mulled cider and caramel apples. I only wish that the characters experienced such an exploration by the author!
I can tell that the author has a very vivid imagination and that she must have been devastated when she had to finish this book because that meant she would have to part with Le Cirque des Reves. Once again, I can understand this. But I only wish that the author would have told us more, given us more depth. I wanted more colour, as it were, than the black, white, grey and red that she gave.
The beginning was very promising. I was ready to be whisked away on a Victorian railway, crossing oceans and all the while becoming more immersed in the phenomenon that this circus was. A little Oscar Wilde quoting gave me extra promise. I could imagine him being a Revere of the circus, someone who was enamored with the ever-changing spectacle and followed the Circus in a cult-like following.
So it starts off with Prospero the Enchanter, magician extraordinaire, master of deception. But his magic was never a deception, it was real. Where did he get this amazing gift? Had he always had it, like something of a birthright? And his daughter, Celia, the illusionist of the Circus one day – did she receive this gift from her father? She must have, I suppose. But what of her mother? Did she experience something of a Harry Potter-esque childhood, never fully understanding her gift until she met her father and came to live with him? Who knows. It was never explored, and I feel it could have lent to depth of character for her, as the main character. She is the challenger that Prospero chooses to pit against the Man in Grey’s challenger.
Celia eventually comes to have an adversary, who also had minimal character development, Marco. He was found in an orphanage by the Man in Grey and from a very young age, Celia and Marco were bound in this challenge, like a marriage of sorts. A challenge that, yet again, was never explored until the last few chapters (nearly 400 pages in!!) of which neither could win; a fight to the death. 
We find ourselves, as readers, swinging back and forth between the experiences of each challenger, wondering when they were to meet and under what circumstances. This place turned out to be the Circus, which was in a nutshell a very large playing board. Not unlike chess, even though the story explains it as nothing at all like chess. Come on. It really was like chess. Marco and Celia work their magic, literally, back and forth in the Circus, developing tent after tent of deeper mystery. Oh, and can you believe it? They fall in love. Of course they do. Why should she fall for the brilliant clockmaker, Friederick Thiessen, who was by far the shining example of what could have been done with all other characters.
I felt like I was supposed to feel badly for Celia and Marco, victims of circumstance, but I could not pity them. They were quite miserable sods, the both of them, but I tried not to fault them completely as it wasn’t their doing to be in the situation they were. The rest of the characters, however, were simply pawns on their chessboard. Overall, they were all quite uninteresting to say the least. They did not know that they were involved in the challenge by proxy. They were all very unfeeling and very self-involved, besides Tara, I suppose, who was the first and only character to question the Circus and why no one involved was growing old, or dying (except for her – anyone Marco had not marked in his book).
Which begs the question: Why did Marco and Celia never question what they were doing and why? Who in their right minds would participate in such a challenge and never question it, for nearly 30 years?!? When Celia’s father, Prospero, died, I was looking forward to her not having to complete the challenge. But no, he just comes back as a bland old ghost. And The Man in Grey is something similar, with no shadow. Because he has lived for so many years? Again, very minimal depth or description on either of these men.
Poppet and Widget, twins who were born on the night of the Circus opening, held much more promise for me. One could see the future and the other could see the past. There was a point when Celia discovered their talents that once again held such promise. They did come to be integral to keeping the Circus running, but not in a very enlightening way. They find a friend who somehow becomes convinced to take over the circus instead of his family farm, Bailey. He may be the deepest character, but still as I’ve heard many review it, “flat as cardboard.”
I did like the fact that there are so many short chapters, which with a small family I could easily read in short bursts. But it was all so contrived and unnecessary, really, it could have been written in half of the pages.
Ultimately, the imagination is there. I’m almost positive that a screenplay will be MUCH better. Exponentially, infinitely better! I won’t contain a spoiler alert because it’s such an unsurprising ending and such a “make everyone happy” kind of ending that it doesn’t really warrant being uncovered here. You, dear reader, may read this novel and absolutely love it. Some have, surely. But not this reader – not for lack of trying!
Well done, Momma.
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