Zachary Rawlins finds a mysterious book in his college library, one that isn’t registered in the system. Among the other stories inside, he finds one that describes a boy who failed to open a painted door, a story exactly describing events from his past. Consumed with the quest to unravel the mystery, he chases the book’s origins to a masquerade ball in New York City and then to a magical underground library. In The Starless Sea, the newest book by Erin Morgenstern, author of the 2012 smash hit debut The Night Circus, Zachary is caught between two factions. One wants to destroy the library, and the other to save it. He must choose a side in a centuries-long battle that started long before he was born.
While The Night Circus was relatively tame and kept to the ‘magical realism’ end of the fantasy fiction spectrum, The Starless Sea is more complex, darker, stranger, and more fantastical than its predecessor. The prose is lush and beautiful, with stories that weave in and out of each other like Russian Matryoshka dolls. The characters are fully fleshed out, each page turning them into more than they were before. Mysteries resolve, but then open out into more mysteries in an endless spiral. Underneath the fairy tales is a meditation on stories in all their forms, the nature of change, and of the human condition. This book will not be to everyone’s taste, but for those that have always longed to find Narnia in the back of their wardrobe, the Starless Sea will feel like coming home.
Review by Shannon Wood
Adult Services Librarian
Nordonia Hills Branch Library
