The Night Circus is one of my favorite books and I will never not get excited about a new magical historical fiction circus book. I went in with big expectations but unfortunately this story fell a bit flat for me. When I saw another reviewer describe this as X-Men meets The Night Circus, I thought I was for sure guaranteed a fun read. By no means is this a bad book, I just never felt invested in the story or the characters and I was honestly really relieved once I finally finished it. My opinion is definitely in the minority though and I think this book will have its own audience that loves it! My favorite part was the found family aspect and the sapphic romance; the representation in general was incredibly well done. I think Dawson has a promising writing style that is full of emotion and I will be seeking out her future books with hopes they work out better for me, especially since Tor is one of my favorite publishers.

REVIEW: ✪✪✪✪
Let me preface this review by thanking NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an
advanced copy of this fantastic book!
I have to say this book ended up being so much more than I gave it credit for while I first started reading it. The beautiful writing was undeniable from the first page. I highlighted so many gorgeous passages, which I think made the book painfully relatable as well as stirring. Yet the beginning threw me off a bit. It felt like I was being thrown in at the middle of a story I wasn't supposed to be a part of. This isn't the first book that does this “fully thrown in the middle of things” type of start, but I’m not sure this one pulled it off.
However, the way the narrative progressed greatly compensated it. The skill and artistry with which the author tackled the themes she wanted to deal with was awe-inspiring. Just as she weaved Judaism into the very core aspects of the story, how in the end Teshuvah and Rin’s spark and journey are one and the same, and were always supposed to go hand in hand.
Moreover, topics like domestic violence, substance abuse, homophobia and war, as well as many others, were treated with the required gentleness. They neither felt rushed nor swiped under the rug. The approach of these is mature and serious enough, but never extremely graphic nor triggering.
I suppose my only grip with this book is that maybe it was too much to handle? Having not only the war, not only the main villain, but also all the internal struggles and the complicated family dynamics and the other POV and the kids... It was a tiny bit overbearing. It didn't read badly, but I would've much preferred if it just focused on the war OR the Circus King OR Rin’s circus.
In conclusion, I couldn’t recommend this book more, all the way from the beautiful writing and the fantastic Sparks to the dearest cast, it will leave you with a little beat of a heartbreak, however it will be worth it, for all the things in between, and all the things the future promises.

"If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

Ringmaster - Rin, to those who know her best - can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks.

With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe - the Circus of the Fantasticals - travel the Midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top.

But threats come at Rin from all sides. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their show and everyone in it. And Rin's past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow she can't fully escape.

It takes the form of another circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin's circus has something he wants, and he won't stop until it's his."

Who doesn't want to read about rival circuses?

Magical circus! Queer characters! Time travel! Historical setting! Creepy villain! Found family! Ahhh there’s so much to love in this book!

I enjoyed the unique story that kept me guessing and wanting to read on. The lyrical prose was gorgeous and wrapped you up as a reader. I loved how the characters were so well developed and you wanted to root for them.

My favorite part was the Circus King plot. He was just such a wicked and fascinating villain. I absolutely loved the ending and how it all came together for a good ending.

My only small complaint was that the pacing moved rather slow, but it wasn’t enough to make me out it down.

Overall, highly recommend!

Full review on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRwJstrx/

I had to DNF this one because it feels like three books, sewn into one, and each is given the shallow treatment with scant exposition and description for scaffolding. The story of Edward and Ruth is one story, a terrifying tale of an abusive magic propped up by a horrifying magical power in possession of the abuser. Very compelling if it were the whole book. The second story is about three women time traveling hoping to change a terrible future. That could also make a whole book but here it seems like an interruption. The third story (and the one I really wanted to read) was about different identities of fascinating characters in a magical circus including two gifted children whom the ringmaster wants to save and help them find a home in the circus.

Many trusted friends highly recommended this, and I think the writing and characters are both good, but this is both too much and too little at the same time for my tastes.

I received an advanced copy via NetGalley.

<i>The First Bright Thing</i> delves into its 1920s setting and circus life to follow Rin, the Ringmaster of a circus that consists of Sparks--people with diverse magical abilities. The phenomenon emerged during the Great War, with no explanation of how or why. Rin can travel to different places and through time, while her trapeze-artist wide Odette has a healing touch. Their circus travels the Midwest, seeking to help people with each show--but they are shadowed by the stalking Circus King, an ominous figure from Rin's past.

The found family theme is strong and beautiful in this book, and the characters need that loving support, as this book delves into some disturbing darkness, mostly of the psychological variety. This one really does require a Trigger Warning straight-up because of the severe abuse it depicts. Through it all, though, there is a prevailing sense of hope. Rin is a Jewish woman, and discussion of her childhood faith and the concept of mitzvah come up often and fit beautifully within this world.

4/10

A lot of work went in to writing the 350 pages in this fantasy fiction novel. I understand the effort and sacrifice that goes into creating a novel like this, so I hate to trash it.

Yet here we go anyway.

I was intrigued by the story - essentially a group of XMen-like people (humans with unique and extraordinary powers) creates a traveling circus. There’s the shapeshifter, the dreamweaver, the time traveler, etc.

Could be interesting, eh?

The story primarily takes place in 1926, between World Wars I and II, and there is a bit of time travel to each. It follows the Ringmaster (Rin, for short) and her struggles. One of her biggest struggles is with the Circus King. Enter evil villain.

The circus king has a competing circus. His secret power is the ability to control peoples minds and have them do horrendous things. He is angry at Rin and wants to destroy her.

Ok, that’s the story. Here are my problems.

The writing is pedantic and often times confusing. There are so many extra words in this book that you could remove entire chapters without impacting anything that happens in the story. In fact, this book should be 200 pages long, it might make it better.

Truthfully there’s not a lot that happens in this story. No dramatic twists and turns, nothing you don’t expect. It’s just grueling chapter after grueling chapter in which Rin is describing that she’s scared of the Circus King.

There is little to no emotional connection made between the reader and the characters. I don’t care about any of them. Well, I take that back. The evil Circus King is the most interesting of the characters. It’s super easy to despise him. As for the others? I will forget them all in a day or two.

There is also a lot of emphasis put on WW II, as if the entire destruction of humanity will occur because of the war. Spoiler alert, we know a lot of people died but all of humanity wasn’t destroyed because of the war.

I’m still not clear why there was this entire long section in which they tried to avoid WWII occurring because they thought it would kill every human, but when they couldn’t stop it, they suddenly didn’t think it would kill everybody anymore so just dropped the subject.

All in all, this was a huge struggle to finish. I pushed through because I wanted to be fair to NetGalley and the author, but I can’t in my right mind recommend this book for anybody.

If you want a good fantasy, go read Mistborn. It’s twice as long of a book, but feels half the effort to read.

#netgalley #thefirstbrightthing

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The First Bright Thing by J. R. Dawson is a lovely circus-based adult fantasy. The story revolves around Rin, a ringmaster at a circus for freaks and misfits. Inside their magical circus, viewers can see powers beyond their imagination. But when a rival circus appears with its evil ringmaster, Rin realizes that she will have to fight for everything she has in order to save her found family. The evil ringmaster will not stop until he has take everything from her.

Here is a magical excerpt from Chapter 1, which is from the Ringmaster's point of view:

"The Spark Circus always arrived when no one was looking, early in the morning. The well-worn train snuck onto the tracks right outside of town, as the birds woke and the dawn broke through the sleepy shadows of Midwestern trees in the early mist.
Train spotters always seemed to miss the train’s approach, until it was nearly upon them, appearing in a blink and charging into town, the cars all the way back, red and gold and blue with the name written along the side: WINDY VAN HOOTEN’S CIRCUS OF THE FANTASTICALS. The last two cars were purple and gold with flowers painted on their thick sturdy wood siding, the windows laced with red curtains."

Overall, The First Bright Thing is an adult historical fantasy that will appeal to fans of The Night Circus and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. One highlight of this book is the LGBT representation. I was surprised that Rin has a wife already who is a central side character. We don't often see established LGBT relationships in fantasy books. Another highlight of this book is the intriguing premise. When I read about the good circus and the bad circus, it definitely made me want to read this book right away.

At first, I thought that the flashback perspective would be just filler, but I actually ended up enjoying the flashback perspective more than the one happening in the present. If I had to complain about 1 thing, I would say that the book was a bit long at 400 pages. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of adult fantasy in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in June!

This book was alright. I do love myself circus stories, but unfortunately, it wasn’t a favorite. I didn’t find myself drawn into the story, and I didn’t like much of the characters. There were definitely interesting parts, but mostly, for me, it fell pretty flat.

Sometimes I read books where the characters have magical abilities, but they use their abilities to do trivial things like have glossy hair. (Okay, I know glossy hair is important, lord knows I've spent enough on argon oil, but it's less important than world peace.) But the characters in The First Bright Thing are working for world peace! Yay! Unfortunately, they bite off more than they can chew. If world peace were easy, we'd have it by now.

Usually I like detailed descriptions, and there are many lovely descriptions in The First Bright Thing. Occasionally the novel seemed long to me. There were many things I liked about it. The misfits because of their magical abilities came together to make a beautiful circus, but they also made a beautiful family who took care of each other. And although the nonmagical public wanted to exterminate those with the "spark," the sparks went out of their way to help troubled people. There are strong women and strong female friendships. Except for the abusive husband that the protagonist Rin is fleeing from, the female and male characters are equal to each other and good friends to one another.

Notice, too, that the first bright thing can stand for more than one thing or person. One bright thing in the story is dreadful and ghastly. while other bright things are helpful and awe-inspiring. Well, the bad bright thing is awe-inspiring but not in a good way. In the long run, the circus performers realize that bringing happiness to the world is their true magic.

A big thank you to Tor and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review The First Bright Thing.

If you are a fan of the night circus you will love this! This is very much its own work but still filled with the magic and a strong voice. I was completely absorbed into this book!

Magical circus? Found family? QUEER?! Getting this ARC from NetGalley was one of my happiest moments and I’m so grateful for getting this book so early!

While this was a slower moving book and I’m an extremely impatient reader, I happily enjoyed every second of this book. It's beautiful, it's heartwarming, it's magic. This story was like drinking a cup of hot tea on a cold day. It warms the soul. You know I'm a sucker for the found family trope and oh my goodness I have never wanted to be part of a found family so bad than I do here!

I loved how sentences would cut off at the end of a chapter and finish at the start of the next chapter. It kept me enraptured until I'd look up and realize it was 1am! I really appreciated how realistic this book was, in spite of being a fantasy story. Rin's struggles with addiction and being queer and Jewish in a time where it wasn't accepted was hard but necessary to read. Absolutely breathtaking, thank you again to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This was such a weird book.

Firstly, the writing is so bland and all over the place, and is desperately in need of an editor. Next, the characters were so meh and stale, I wanted to stop reading as soon as I started. Time travel is fun but this book made it so boring that I had to stop reading and pick something actually good, which is anything except this book. The plot and pacing were slow, but I thought it would get better, it didn't. I would not recommend this unless you want to fall asleep.

I am blown away by Dawsons creativity and talent, a debut that can encompass so many valuable themes and lessons and still be readable, developed and well crafted in imagery and character growth, bravo.

This felt like x-men, but it’s a circus, oh and it’s historical fiction, and let’s throw in lots queer representation.

Post WWI many people in the world begin developing special powers or as they call them “sparks” and while the world has come to coexist with sparks and humans they are often ostracized and rejected. Rin our bad ass, time jumping, lesbian, ring leader has created a circus that is a safe haven for sparks who are running from something. But as she is jumping through time and transporting her circus from places it is most needed she see a glimmer of a future strife with war once again. Can Rin find a loop hole to stop future catastrophe?

This is definitely a darker story, there is trigger warnings to be aware of like alcoholism, gaslighting, murder, racism. But each difficult theme is written in such a way that offers a deep sense of understanding and healing, or offers plot devices that make the story interesting and diverse.

Found family has always been a favourite theme of mine and this book has heaps and heaps of it, I loved the idea of rescuing those who need it but allowing the healing on their own terms.

While there are some jumping timelines and two alternating plots taking place I felt the story was rather easy to understand and the only issue I found was I wanted a bit more development of our villain I just didn’t quite believe his motives, but his character overall is a blip in comparison to Rin and the circus.

A great book for fantasy or sci fi lovers looking for something special and fresh.

Big thank you to @netgalley and @torbooks for the advanced copy all opinions are my own.

Release date is June 13!

This was confusing and really felt like it was trying too hard to be something specific, like the author was trying to emulate a style that’s not their own, and it wasn’t working for me at all.

A fantasy book that strives to keep the information about "the sparks" - a magical force that grants people powers - mysterious for a little too long in the book... Some parts lost me as the story rambles a bit.

It wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.

I mean, it wasn't /bad/, it just wanted to grab all, and may as well lost all. I've seen it compared to Night Circus in a few reviews, which fortunately has nothing to do with it, but it didn't make my heart skip a beat either way. The most interesting point of the book is that we can watch the antagonist becoming the antagonist in close-up, and I also liked the abusive/manipulative relationship dynamics, it was authentic. Everything else… eh.

It's a time-traveling X-Men in circus story set in the twenties, and somehow it didn't get interesting??? None of the main trio of ladies managed to catch my attention for long, as I found them kinda bland, but my rating dropped for a certain fact: Rin and her mitzvah storyline. The thing is, two thing collided with her: I avoid reading WW2 stories in general, and I feel frustraterd whenever I try to find novels about Jews, 90% of the time I end up in WW2 books (especially in my native language, which is not English). You can imagine my dislike when I realized it will be the case here as well.

I still dont understand how this book didn't manage to grab me as I hoped it would. It's even queer!

Wow. What a magical read!

I really don't know how to describe this book or even how to collect my thoughts about it. It was definitely a ....magical realism historical fiction? Rather than a true fantasy- which is something I love.

The book at its heart follows Rin, who runs a magical circus and clearly has a troubled past. I found the 'twist' rather obvious, but I suspect that was intentional.

The queer relationships in this book were wonderful, and it had a lot of commentary on abuse of power and misogyny in relationships. I also loved the discussions of how to make change in the world.

4.5 - definitely one I want on my shelves!!

This was the magic circus I have been craving ever since I finished The Night Circus. I've read the Caraval series by Stephanie Garber but it just didn't hit the mark for me. However, the circuses (even the one run by The Circus King) in The First Bright Thing were exactly what I wanted and imagined what I would want a magic circus to look like.

The character development of Rin was astounding and tragic and beautiful all wrapped up into one. How she goes from a teenager figuring out her Spark to an older woman completely at ease with who she is, it's truly remarkable. I loved the villainy of Edward even more and enjoyed his development as well. How his Spark could've truly been used for good, but instead he leaned towards the darkness.

*Spoilers*

The only thing I wasn't impressed with was the ending. To have Rin bring Edward back to where she first grabbed/saved him seemed so cruel and completely out of character for her. She always leaned towards the good, the light and this action of bringing him back to the place that he was so terrified of and clearly had PTSD from, it was cruel. No matter what Edward did throughout the book, I did not think he deserved an ending like that. I hated that ending so much that it made me dislike Rin and not want her to have a happy ending either. It really bothered me that she tortured Edward the way he did.

Maybe that was the author's intention, maybe not. Regardless, the book still gets a 5 out of 5 stars for me. The character development was impeccable and one of the most clever circus plots I've ever read. Well done J.R. Dawson!!

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing. J. R. Dawson has written an amazing book that doesn't need comparisons to other books; it stands completely on its own magical merits quite well, thank you very much. Loved it!