This is certainly a book that makes me wish I could rate its different aspects separately. World-building? Excellent. Plot? Eh. 
 Morgenstern's descriptions of the titular Night Circus are enthralling; there is a sense of mystery and wonder throughout those sections, and her pure inventiveness is a delight. The circus is evocative and magical, whilst its curious history had me reading avidly (particularly, the emergence of the circus groupies, the "reveurs"). 
 The characters and story, though? Some of the minor players are certainly sweet, (the clockmaker, Friedrick Thiessen, was beautifully drawn), but the protagonists never acquired my interest. This came into particular focus once the plot shifted overtly into a romance; not a choice that I have any conceptual problem with, but I felt so little invested in either Marco or Celia that I was not terribly bothered by the outcome. As a result, there just seemed to be a fundamental lack of narrative drive; at about the halfway mark I found myself wondering just how on earth there could be another couple of hundred pages left to go, which is never a good feeling to evoke. 
 So, not a bad ride - not at all - but one that runs out of steam once the novelty of the setting wears off, with a plot and set of characters that are never quite compelling enough to have me hungrily turning pages. Still, worth checking out.