The Night Circus - Review

Title: The Night Circus
Author: Erin Morgernstern
Part of a series? No, unfortunately:(
Synopsis: The Circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it...It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.
Rating: A million ★ out of five.

Oh. My. Goodness. This book was just..incredible. Everything was beautiful: the cover, the insides of the cover, and the writing. Every passage flowed wonderfully for me; every description was clear and the characters were so individual. This book has now become one of my all-time favourites, something I was not expecting!

*The rest of this review will contain spoilers, so read on at your own risk!*

Ok, so. Where to start? I've literally just finished the book about an hour ago, and I want to read it again. This is one of the first books that I've genuinely felt sad about finishing! This is also the first time I've used sticky notes to mark my favourite passages. Some of my most loved parts are the ballroom scene when Marco kissed Celia, when he made the book-ship-thing (all of the magical aspects really), and this:

"Do you remember all of your audiences?" Marco asks.
"Not all of them," Celia says. "But I remember the people who look at me the way you do."
"What way might that be?"
"As though they cannot decide if they are afraid of me or they want to kiss me."
"I am not afraid of you," Marco says.

*Cue loud fangirling*

The characters in The Nigt Circus were well-developed, my favourites being Marco, Poppet, and Bailey. I seriously loved Bailey and his kind-of-almost-possibly-more-than-a-friendship with Poppet. Marco and Celia's relationship was gorgeous, although I was worried for a minute that one was just pretending so they could win the game.

Speaking (well, typing) of the game, I never predicted that Tsukiko would be the winner of the previous game. The ending of the book was as strong and mysterious as the beginning, and I loved how there were the small passages of second person scattered throughout the book. Combined with the detailed descriptions of all of the amazing exhibits really brought the circus to life. The magical elements of the book were very interesting as well.

One thing that didn't bother me but I did think of after reading this was that I was never 100% sure of the age of the characters after the second or third part. There was one point where Celia said something about he game having gone on for almost thirty years which made me go, "Has it?"  However, I think that added to the mystery and atmosphere of the book and worked with the fact that no one in the circus seemed to age.

The Night Circus is definitely worth a read (and a reread, and a rereread...) and I am so glad I have read it! Let me know what you thought of it in the comments.  I'd love to hear you opinions!(:

Shadow Kiss - Review

Title: Shadow Kiss
Author: Richelle Mead
Part of a series? Yes, the third in the VA series.
Rating: 4 ★

*This review will contain spoilers for Vampire Academy books 1-3*

After reading Shadow Kiss,  I finally understand why everyone loves Vampire Academy, and I finally understand why people ship Romitri! I think the more I read VA books, the more I love them. It's taken me a while to get used to Richelle Mead's writing style again, but I'm almost there.

My favourite scene from this book would have to be when Christian and Rose were fighting the Strigoi together. Richelle Mead writes fight scenes really well,  so I could picture them easily. I loved the way they became friends (ish) in this book.

Onto Dimitri, Lissa and Rose! They were so good together, and I would have cried about Dimitri if my friend hadn't told me that he became a Strigoi. Lissa and Rose's farewell nearly did make me cry as their friendship is so strong and Lissa relies on Rose completely. It'll be interesting to see how she manages without Rose in the next book.

One thing that I really didn't like is the way Rose treated Adrian. In case you hadn't spotted this in my review of Frostbite, I love Adrian. A lot. He is one of my favourite male characters, probably out of every book I've read. So it upset me when Rose tried to flirt with him just so he would help her. She even says that it's "low of her", and I was so annoyed with her!

All of the threads in the story were interesting: the Măna, the Queen's plans for Adrian and Lissa, the Dhampirs preparing to be Guardians.  I especially loved how Rose can see ghosts now,  and how seeing Mason helped her accept she wasn't fully responsible for his death.

I have about three more books to read before I go back to this series and read Blood Promise, but I'm excited to continue with it.

Book-buying Bans, TBR Jars, and Camp NaNoWriMo Confusion

Somewhere on this page is (hopefully) a picture of my latest book haul, containing: Cinder by Marissa Meyer(I WILL read the Lunar Chronicles before the fourth book comes out!), The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton(I'm not going to lie, I bought it mainly for the cover; I know it's set in Amsterdam and everyone loves it, and that's it), Lola & the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, and These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner.

For those of you who don't know(probably most of you), I'm currently on a book-buying ban, as my TBR books have gone from one small pile to three rather large piles in a worryingly short space if time. Well, I'm meant to be on a book-buying ban, but I broke it(again) at the weekend. Now, I thought I'd share how I plan on changing my ban so it's easier to keep, along with my TBR jar rules.

My book-buying ban was originally meant to be all year, with exceptions towards any books I've been waiting for for ages (like Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray-roll on July!). This failed within...well, by February, because I apparently have no self-control! Now, however, I've come up with a new plan which will hopefully be easier to keep up with.
March-on the ban (we'll just let my most recent book haul...*shoves books to bottom of back pile of TBR pile* what book haul?)
April-off the ban
May-on the ban(probably for the best...I need to focus on exams:/)
June-on the ban(exams again:/)
July-off the ban
August-off the ban
September-on it
October-off it
November-off it
December-on it

I will no doubt break this by the second of May, but at least I can say I tried! For my TBR jar, I use the system of reading five books picked by the jar and then choosing one myself. I also give myself two or three picks from the jar if I don't feel like reading the first one.

And finally, onto Camp NaNoWriMo! I am doing it for the first time this year, which I'm quite excited about. I've set up my account, but I can't change it from April to July, when I'd like to do it. Any suggestions?
Have any of you read the books I've hauled today? If anyone is on a ban at the moment, how is it going? Let me know if you're doing Camp NaNoWriMo, and if you know how to change the dates!
(: