Reviews

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

pippamjtod's review against another edition

adventurous inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

tintarapanont's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The characters were great and I thought Marian’s story was so fascinating. Part of me feels like Hadley’s part could’ve been left out? I can see the parallels between her and Marian, but I found the twins’ story much more interesting and usually was just waiting to get back to them.

martha_anne_h's review against another edition

adventurous reflective

4.5

kellypantason's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

apoppe1026's review against another edition

Bored

jess_mango's review

4.0

Now on the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

Throughout history, and even in modern times, it's been hard for women to get respect and recognition in spheres typically dominated and controlled by men. In Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead has brought to life the character of Marian Graves, who was raised by her uncle in Montana. She becomes fascinated with airplanes and flight after a pair of barnstormers bring their show through town. She drops out of school at 14 when a bootlegger offers to pay for flight lessons and offers her a job flying in booze from Canada. This "deal with the devil" (so to speak) locks her into a connection with a dangerous man. She dreams of circumnavigating the globe by flying her airplane north/south across both of the poles.

We also meet a troubled actress Hadley, who came to fame in a teen sitcom and has since gone down the path of sex, drugs, and recklessness followed by many child stars. She gains more fame when se is cast in a paranormal romance franchise of films that has a base of obsessed fans who write fan fiction not just about her character but about her too. After a scandal, she is removed from that franchise and it told she will never work in Hollywood again. But, she is offered a role playing Marian in feature film and jumps at the chance.

This was the story of two young women, both being controlled and having their careers hindered by men. Both women fight to follow their dreams and live their lives. I liked the blending of historical fiction and a modern story that has echoes of the #metoo movement.

What to listen to while reading...
Sit Next to Me by Foster the People
Off the Radar by Noga Erez
Child Star by The Unicorns
Aeroplane by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Hollow Life by Coast Modern
Dark Days by Local Natives

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!

hypocretin's review against another edition

4.0

This is such an annoying book to review. There was so much here that spoke to me, that inspired and touched and stayed with me. So much beautiful writing, such grounded and well-realized characters. This is annoying because those parts exclusively belong to the Marian storyline. 

 

I found everything in Hadley’s section of the book so flat and uninspired it honestly surprises me that it came from the same author. I understand what Shipstead was going for in terms of themes and broader ideas—which I broadly appreciate and agree with—but it was just so lacking in the texture and nuance that characterized the Graves thread I felt like none of those ideas really landed. 

 

Her chapters felt, at best, like a waste of time. I’m stubbornly committed to not skipping around in books or speeding up the performance, so I listened to all her chapters and I just truly wish I hadn’t. There were a couple of moments where events in the Graves thread were foreshadowed or revealed through Hadley’s perspective of events, and some of those times—including

the revelation that Marian did survive her last flight

!!!—actively made my experience of the narrative worse. It made

Marian’s survival

about fulfilling Hadley’s personal arc. It made it feel cheap and unearned and I was instantly prepared to just hate the whole ending. 

 

Now, luckily, I do not hate the ending, because Marian Graves (

Martin Wallace!!

) does earn that ending. There were some extraordinarily beautiful ideas and phrasings in those last chapters, but also in all of her sections. 

 

The writing alone in Marian’s thread is just dead gorgeous. It’s lyrical and lingering, very light with its touch on detail, and yet so incredibly grounded in a sense of reality? There’s nothing dreamlike or fanciful about any of it despite how soulful and expressive it is. It reminded me a lot of my experience of reading Demon Copperhead, although with a much different inner voice than the one guiding the story here. 

 

But also, just thematically with its stories and characters. These sections have so much compassion and thoughtful exploration in them. It is an incredibly honest and tender depiction of

grooming and abuse

. It never shies from the complexity of things, the imperfectness of the honest story where we want clear answers and clean emotions. I love it. It means the world to me. 

 

So, how then to rate the book as a whole? I think probably the 5-star scale isn’t always the best way to measure art, but in the spirit of the sport I’m giving it a 4, because I think the good outweighs the bad. I still really loved this book, and if they ever release a hardcover edition that is only Marian’s thread I will be the first in line to buy it. 

“If it had been her, she would have done what he said he would do: walked in the winter night far away from camp and lain in the snow, under the stars and the aurora. Or maybe not—it is not lost on her she had twice failed to choose death. She’d written in her logbook that her life was her one possession. She had kept it; she had wanted it.”

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

heli_hz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

markcastaneda's review

4.0

really fantastic and compelling story. minor issues (imbalance of dedicated narrative to Hadley vs Marian, plot devices and storylines without symbolic or literary utility) are irrelevant to me when I simply enjoy a story for the intrinsic value of becoming wrapped in a longform novel. in short, i rlly liked it :,)

karabeta's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.25