Plot
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Characters
Celia Bowen is my favorite character. Not because she is one of the protgonists and not because she is one of the first characters to be introduced to the reader, but because I relate to her the most. She's suffered, and is still suffering from what her father, Prospero the Enchantor or Hector Bowen has done to her. My generation would refer to Celia as a "cinnamonroll that is pure and needs to be protected" and that is how I feel about her. She doesn't deserve what she's put through, and her powers aren't worth the game she had to play.
Which brings me to Hector Bowen aka Prospero the Enchanter, Celia's father and beside Hector, the man in the grey suit.
I get they're vital to the story line and while you cannot really paint them as the antagonists in the story, I despise both of them. They seem to think that they can end their rivalry by having their students play this game. Here's another point: Celia is not just Hector's student but his daughter which makes the situation he put her in even motre cruel. No doubt, Celia is a talented illusionist, but she is still his daughter, and he chose to walk at her side as a ghost and antagonize her.
The man in the grey suit, Mr. A. H., is no better than Hector. He choses his student, teaches him, pushes him away and lets him work out the game by himself.
They both play vital parts, because they started it all, but that doesn't justify their actions.
Moving on, to Marco. Just like Celia, Marco falls into the "cinnamon roll" category. Just like Celia, he didn't deserve this game. I can see that playing the game might be better than staying at the orphanage Mr. A. H. found him at but again, the game can not be justified in any way.
Marco is a gentleman, that's all I can say. He remains, given the circumstances, kind and he is serious about his feelings for Celia. He cares for her enough to be willing to sacrifice herself.
I am going to delve into one more character in this review. I found Tsukiko, the contortionist to be a very interesting character, and right from the beginning, when she is first introduced to the story, I was mesmerized by her. The way she was described as well as the fact that she is a contortionist had me intrigued.
There's not much that we get to know about her, even though the thing we do get to know is as vital to the story as Hector Bowen and Mr. A. H. are - she was Mr. A. H.'s student and she won the last game that was played.
Over all, all the characters were described in such a way they were vividly living inside my head, and I feel that, if I had been a visitor of the Circus, I would have tried to befriend them like Bailey befriended Poppet and Widget.

The Setting
I've never been a fan of Circuses because they have clowns - I hate clowns with a burning passion, but that is why I love Les Cirque des Rêves. It doesn't have clowns but contortionists, an ice garden, an illusionist and so many more whimsical things that you don't get to see at a normal circus.
Again, the describtions, not only of the Circus, but of all the other places in the book add so much.
The reader isn't aware of the fact that Marco and Celia are creating the tents the visitors can see,at least up to a certain point and  that is exactly what makes the Circus of Dreams the Circus of Dreams. It's the most whimsical place and it seems almost surreal, just like all the other places.
You want to be there, you want to visit all the tents and eat all the chocolate mice, drink the apple cider and most importantly, you want to forget time and place for a little bit. It is a place that doesn't exist anywhere else, it is unlike anything you've ever seen and yet you don't want to leave.

Final Words
The Night Circus is a must re-read book for me, and while it might be a problem for some people, I didn't mind the mixed plots an descriptiveness of the book.
The book was creating an actual place in my head, and I don't have that very oftten,
It took me a while to push this book aside to free my brain for new stories, but I cannot stop thinking about this book.