Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Title: Piranesi

Author: Susanna Clarke

Pages: 245

Finished: September 19, 2020

First Sentence: When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of three Tides.

Summary: Piranesi's World is a vast house of infinite rooms housing statues, oceans, clouds, and birds. He shares this world with The Other who visits with him twice a week to discuss their findings on the Great and Secret Knowledge. But one day, Piranesi finds evidence that someone else is in this world.

Thoughts: This was not the book I expected it to be, but that's okay because it was amazing!

Some background. Five years ago from the writing of this review, I read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I was hooked. I immediately started looking up read-alikes and stumbled upon Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved it just as much as I loved The Night Circus. So to have works by both these authors come out this year has been quite the treat.

That being said, Piranesi is a completely different book from her previous work. I struggle to write my thoughts without spoiling anything. So we'll start with The House.

The House reminds me a lot of the Library from The Starless Sea what with it's statues, oceans, and even a mention of bees. For a moment, due to the cover of the book, and the mention of minotaurs, I thought this was a retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur. It wasn't. But the House is stunning and now I want to visit. 

The story is told through Piranesi's journal entries. It starts with just his daily life in The House. But the careful reader starts to spot holes or other unsettling things. We pick up what's happening well before Piranesi himself does... and then once he becomes aware, it's a race to the end to see what happens. 

After reading it, I looked up the name Piranesi and discovered there was an 18th century, Italian artist by the name of Giovanni Battista Piranesi who made engravings of elaborate, labyrinthine rooms. After looking them up, they definitely serve as some inspiration for the setting. 

All in all, this was an incredible book that I happened to devour in a weekend. It's been so long since a book has captivated me quite that way, and I really enjoyed reading this one. It hits all the right appeal terms and a decent frame for me, but I'm still struggling to figure out what those appeal terms are because in general, I'm very eclectic. (Also, I'm going to start flexing some new review muscles as we just had a huge Staff Training on readers advisory.)

My appeal terms for this book:

engrossing character driven story with a magical setting almost dreamy feel to the writing.

Read-alikes: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern