This was a weird literary fever dream. I have no idea how to describe it or even explain what happened, but I really enjoyed it. Usually I race through books, desperate to swallow the whole plot at once, but this I read slowly and leisurely, dipping in and dipping out, and I was always engrossed and surprised by the connections and images.

Morgenstern is a delight. I have rarely seen so much creativity in my life. The book is an expertly woven tale linking past to present and beyond. The tale begins with a lonely university scholar who is whisked into an adventure on the Starless Sea when he finds a book in the library about himself. This is a story of self discovery, love, and how infinite our universe is. Readers who expect this to be the same as The Night Circus might be disappointed; those who come in with an open mind and a desire to be carried away by a tale will be delighted.

This is a tough one for me. I confess, I did not love this book. I *liked* it well enough, but found the structure disconcerting and the story a bit confusing. Occasionally, I have a hard time focusing on books that alternate stories with each chapter, which is what I think made this a less satisfying read than I expected. I kept wanting to read the Zachary Ezra Rawlins narrative and got really annoyed that it kept being interrupted by the alternating fairytale chapters. I know they all come together in the end, but the format kept me feeling disconnected throughout and made the narrative drag. It didn't help that I was reading this in e-format. If I'd hard a print copy, I would have totally skipped around the chapters to satisfy my curiosity.

At the same time, this is a book filled with gorgeous language and description, the fairyland of my childhood dreams where one can get lost for centuries among all the stories in the world. Could there be a better place? I think not. I did enjoy the DungeonMaster/RPG approach to telling Zachary's story, which at times made me feel as those I was inside the story, and I really enjoyed the characters.

I am 100% certain that fans of The Night Circus will eat this up. Morgenstern's writing gets ALL the adjectives - lovely, luminous, lyrical, etc. and I predict this will appear on all the Best of 2019 lists.

Dreamy and fantastical but ultimately not as compelling as you’d think it would be. I enjoyed it while actually reading it but often chose to do something other than pick it up to continue reading.

ETA: I’ve been thinking about this a lot. The plot was interesting, the details intriguing, but the characters just... flat.

I wanted to love this novel so, so much. I loved Morgenstern’s previous book and magical realism/fantasy is a genre I adore. I got about 60% through this and was loving it. However, right around this point I felt that it started to get really slow. Generally I don’t have an issue with longer books, but with this one I was bothered. It seemed like a lot of the same things kept happening, instead of the plot moving like a river. Which again, is something I can be cool with depending on how it’s done. In this case, I don’t like how it was done. It’s beautifully written and so interesting. But for me it fell kinda flat... which I feel bad saying because it is such beautiful writing. I might revisit this one in the future, but for now it is what it is.

If you had fun at The Night Circus-
you want to sail on the The Starless Sea!!

Time is a River (with inlets)
A book is an interpretation, only words
a place where you go in your imagination.
Sometimes life gets weird
Open the door and escape to an
Underground Library World

I want to be on the Starless Sea Shores
I want to walk a labyrinthine of candlelit tunnels
and rooms filled with stories

I truly enjoyed The Night Circus- excited to see a new book coming
and to have the opportunity to preview it. Completely recommend!