The Night Circus

My mother suggested that I read this book. I have to admit, when I started the book, I did not really think that I would enjoy it. But I was pleasantly surprised that I did enjoy this book.

The book revolves around two competing magicians as they attempt to prove which of them is the strongest. What they don't know is that their teachers have kept the way that you win from both of them.

The Night Circus is a traveling circus where Celia, one of the competitors, performs as an illusionist. Marco, the other competitor, is stuck in London as he attempts to compete appropriately.

The circus becomes their challenge. They use their magic to change and enhance the circus, creating wonders that most of us would only dream of. But, eventually, they use the circus to express feelings that they begin having for each other.

It becomes an almost sweet love story. I definitely liked it. But my enjoyment came after some unknown point where I realized that I just couldn't put the book down.

The Book of Lost Things

I bought this book because it originally appealed to me. Basically, a kid using books to cope with life. It's what I do.

David is 12, his mother has just died, his father remarries shortly after, and he suddenly has a new half-brother. He hears his books talk. And suddenly, he is thrust into a world that he doesn't understand.

The land has no name. David comes through a tree into a forest. He meets a Woodsman who desires to help him get to the king so that he can perhaps get home again. So, David sets off with the Woodsman, and later with a knight by the name of Roland.

Throughout his journey, he encounters fairy tales that he has grown up knowing, only they are twisted. Snow White is fat and cruel, Sleeping Beauty is a wicked enchantress, and Beauty and the Beast is turned around, where the Beast is a lady and the man is the love interest.

David is also pursued by a Crooked Man. A man who makes promises in exchange for his little brother's name.

As David travels through the land, he finds himself working through the issues he has. He works on his grief over his dead mother. He works through the issues he has with his stepmother and half-brother. But mostly, he works on himself.

I loved the book. What I got out of it is not likely to be what someone else gets out of it.

Beautiful Redemption

**Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 2.5 * Book 3**

I must say, after the depressing end of the third book, I wasn't really sure where this one would go. I mean, seriously, Ethan was gone. There's generally no coming back from a jump off a water tower.

How wrong I was. This book was exciting like the others, but with a sort of bittersweet note to it. I'm not sure if that was my own personal feelings regarding the ending of a series I had come to love or me sort of feeling what the characters felt.

Ethan is determined. He isn't supposed to be dead. This was not his fate. But if he wants to return to the Mortal world, to his family, to Lena, he has to go on a huge quest that is not as easy as it sounds. Just cross a river, make a deal with a gatekeeper, rip a page out of a book. Sounds easy, right? It's not.

Ethan encounters problems the whole way, and he has to use all of his skills to solve the problems of his journey. Unlike the other times that he has to deal with some supernatural problem, this time he is, for all intents and purposes, alone.

I'm sad this series is over, but I think it had a really satisfying ending. But, part of me does wish it didn't have an ending. But that's the same part of me that hates to have a good book end.

Beautiful Chaos

**Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 2.5**

The world is ending. At least, it appears to be. Heat wave, drought, earthquakes, and the Casters have unreliable powers.

Ethan and Lena go on a hunt to figure out how to fix the chaos that Lena's Claiming caused. When she chose both Light and Dark, she broke the Order of Things, and now the Mortal world is going through the apocalypse.

Ethan's Shadowing Song, the warning from his mother, tells of a Demon Queen and The One Who Is Two. This mysterious person is the one who can bring about a New Order through sacrifice. If only they could find The One Who Is Two.

I am loving these books, but I'm sad that I only have one left.

Dream Dark

**Book 1 * Book 2**

Dream Dark is a little blip in the Caster Chronicles. After Link is bitten in Beautiful Darkness, he starts transforming. He goes to Macon to get help and to learn about his new abilities. But, he also learns that the events that happened at the end of book 2 have repercussions that can bring about the end of the world.

It's a short story, with six chapters. It took me almost no time whatsoever to finish. It's not a great little story, but I'm not really a huge fan of Link anyway.

Beautiful Darkness

** Book 1 **

Ok, first, a slight confession. I've been comparing these books to the Twilight Saga. I have a good reason though. I find a lot of parallels between the two.

This is the second book of the Caster Chronicles. Lena is struggling with her identity after the disastrous night of her sixteenth birthday. Her uncle is dead, and she blames herself. Her eyes are becoming increasingly golden, a mark of a Dark Caster. She's pushing Ethan away and hanging with a boy named John Breed. A boy who seems to be an Incubus, but with the green eyes of a Light Caster.

The parallel of this book to New Moon is that the supernatural character in the relationship separates because they think that it is unsafe for the Mortal to be around them. But, unlike Twilight, where the Mortal sits and mopes for months, Ethan goes out and does something about it.

What this results in is a quest through the secret underground Caster Tunnels. Ethan, Link, and Liv (Marian's summer intern) attempt to find Lena while Ethan tries to figure out his destiny as a Wayward, a living compass for someone in the Caster world (Lena).

There is something magical about these books when I read them. I have a hard time putting them down.

Little Town on the Prairie

**Links: Book 1 * Book 2 * Book 3 * Book 4 * Book 5 * Book 6**

The Ingalls girls are growing up. Mary goes off to the special college for the blind, Grace is a rambunctious three year old, Carrie is older, but somehow more frail, and Laura, well, she goes through a lot of changes.

As Mary heads off to college, Laura becomes resigned to the fact that in just a short while, she will have to become a teacher to help keep Mary in college. While she isn't excited about it, she accepts it as a must happen.

Nellie Oleson, the horrid girl from their time on Plum Creek, has made a reappearance in De Smet. She is just as stuck up and superior as she had been before, although now her family is broke and she just comes off as a spoiled brat.

And Almanzo seems to be beginning a courtship with Laura. He walks her home from church during a week of revival meetings, and she seems flattered, albeit confused.

Oh to be courted in that time period. I imagine it must have been very romantic. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. Which, I'm pretty sure, is what the next book in this series is about: the love.