The books I'm about to give a review on today are possibly for-sure the best fantasy books of all time (in my opinion at-least lol). These two enchanting books are known as The Starless Sea and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
Below I'm going to give you my *SPOILER FREE* honest review on these books and why I heavily believe you should have read them as of yesterday.
💙The Starless Sea💙
🔑🍯🗡️
So, let me just make something real clear here, I've read a bunch of books by now and majority of them have been fantasy driven; The Starless Sea has yet to be beaten as my number one. It truly is such a magical book that takes your mind and soul into a whole other world.
Now, let me make some key points here to try and convince you to read this.
If I were to convince you to read this book based off of one quote alone it would be, "Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate".
The vibe of it is magical, whimsical, and metaphorical.
The genres are magical realism and fantasy with a subgenre of romance.
No plot and vibe only.
Always keeps you guessing on what's happening. Eventually, everything makes more sense once you reach the end.
The book cover is beautiful and elegant (especially the UK hardcover version).
The paperback version has 570 pages
Short chapters that alternate between a metaphorical story that will have todo with the actual story later on and the present day story itself.
Playlist available on Spotify and YouTube to listen in the background as your reading.
This story is about a boy that finds a strange book in a library and then realizes this book is about him. He then tries figuring out why there's a book written about his past and as he's trying to uncover the secrets, he finds magical and strange things like doors to different worlds, starless seas (😉), people that are stories, and stories that are people.
That's all I can explain, the rest should be left up for mystery!
❤️The Night Circus🖤
🃏🎪🎩
This book is Erin Morgenstern's first book ever written. People enjoyed this so much that nobody thought she could make another book better, so they called her a "one hit wonder" author (until Starless Sea of course).
In my opinion, this book was amazing and I literally read it within a day and a half, but it still was not has good as Starless Sea. Therefore, I suggest you read this one first and then Starless second. I read this one second and I wish I didn't so I could see the natural progression in her writing.
Now onto the important points about this book.
A famous quote from this book that encapsulates what it's about is, "I would rather burn by her side than live without her".
The vibe is dark, alluring, and spellbinding.
The genres for this book are fantasy and romance.
This one has more of a plot compared to Starless and is still vibey, but definitely more plot driven.
The farther you read the more you uncover and understand what the night circus even is, so it has you hooked from the start.
The paperback version has 512 pages.
This one also has alternating chapters between the past and the future/present, which make the chapters relatively short.
There's playlists on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube that fit the theme of The Night Circus
This book is about if magic was present in the real world and what it would be like. We have 2 main characters that are being trained to duel against in each other to see which one is the better magician. The catch is, we don't know what this duel is or when it's taking place or even the rules of it, and neither do the main characters. We constantly are trying to figuring out with the characters what it is they're competing for and how a winner will be chosen. Also, majority of the setting for this story is in this magical night circus, which give you whimsical and ethereal vibes to it.