Another Night At The Circus

Went and saw Now You See Me the other day and was very pleasantly surprised, I really enjoyed it.  Best part was I honestly did not see the ending coming.  Of course as with all good movies, it makes me want to go read a book on the same topic...so I decided to reread The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  I was very curious to see how it would read a second time, would the magic still be there, would the ending still annoy me, would I pick up stuff I missed the first time around?  So here we go, my second look (to read my first impressions go here).

The plot stayed the same (shocking right!), but the magic was still there, in fact there were little tidbits I had forgotten about that popped back to surprise me (the amazing simplicity of the Pool of Tears for one). Overall I was pleased at the rereadability of this book.  Most of my original impressions remain unaltered, I still felt like I was walking through an art gallery most of the time, rather then just reading a straight forward story.  This time though I felt like I got more of the story, and more of the characters came through.  I think not being quit so caught up in the descriptions of the circus let me dwell a bit more on the different characters.  I caught a lot more of the foreshadowing this time through as well, which actually helped make the ending feel less abrupt.  Once you know what the ending entails, you realize that the hints, visions, and preparations had been going on for quit some time.  The only downside to rereading a book this magical is that it does lose just a wee bit of that initial WOW factor, and you tend to pick up on some of the more mundane details which ground it into reality a bit more then I wanted to be grounded :-)  All this being said I will definitely be reading this book again on some gray raining day when I need a bit of magic in my dreary day.

What is your second impressions usually like?  Do you usually find yourself liking a book more or less upon second (or third...) reread?  Do you ever feel guilty for rereading a book when your TBR pile is so huge?