I’ll preface by saying the summery on the back of this one is super misleading. It builds you up to believe you’re in for some kind of riveting, intense, magical love story and tbh that’s……. just not really the case.

There’s really no definitive plot, just 4 or 5 pov’s (including your own) about a two magicians destined to eventually compete in some elusive game that no one ever knows all the details about.
The whole story is basically just a slew of these characters’ perspectives to the random, and often mundane, happenings at the circus.

Personally, I don’t usually enjoy reading mundane stories, so I was really apprehensive about even reading this. But all the raving reviews about how beautiful the prose is really aren’t lying. Marco’s yearning for Celia was so beautiful in a subdued and believable way. Their love for one another feels reverent and sacred so even though I was bored with a lot of other sections of the book, when I got to chapters with them it was so so so good.

This one isn’t for everyone, but I get why people think it’s special.

Read it or don’t, but y’all can’t say my dog Erin isn’t talented