Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Great Circle

Great Circle tells two stories in parallel, hopping between the different narrative threads: the story of Marian Graves, a female pilot in the first half of the twentieth century; and that of Hadley Baxter, a Hollywood film star recruited to play Marian in the eventual movie of her life. It's a 600-page book but it still manages to feel compressed and efficient, as Shipstead drops us in and out of Hadley and especially Marian's lives at intervals ranging from months to years, deftly handling the story's lengthy timespan. This chronological scope is matched geographically: the characters' 'home bases' are Montana and LA but we are taken all over the world, from the UK to the tiniest Pacific atolls to the great white blankness of Antarctica. Shipstead conjures all of them in vivid detail, sometimes from the bird's-eye perspective of Marian in her plane but often at ground-level, down among the mud.

I loved this book. Shipstead is a hugely compelling storyteller whose characters I found it easy to care about and whose narrative and settings felt fresh. Her omniscient narration offers the reader frequent insights into even minor characters' experiences, so that you get the sense of a complex world peopled with complex characters each of whom is driven by their particular hopes and fears. It also means that as reader, you are often privileged to information that other characters don't have: for example, when Marian's twin brother Jamie runs away to spend a summer in Seattle, we see his experience in detail and in a way that Marian herself learns only a good deal later. This experience sits alongside the contrasting thread of Hadley's investigations into Marian's history. It's not an original plot (I'm thinking of AS Byatt's Possession as the obvious example) but Shipstead uses it to make a point about the way that we understand history - effective in a big, whole-of-the-20th-century, book - and also about the limits to our knowledge of others. Even the reader, one step ahead for most of the novel, must wait until the very end for the book - for Marian's narrative - to cede its last secret.

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jennikreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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nicoleamanfu's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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questingnotcoasting's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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? No

5.0

This is one of the best books I've read this year. I often enjoy books which tell a sweeping story following a character's whole life and I thought it was done brilliantly here. I was so invested in Marian Graves and she felt so much like a real person. However I was also really interested in Hadley, the actor playing Marian in a movie, which meant I never minded when the chapters switched to her story. I enjoyed seeing the parallels and contrasts between the two characters' lives and there was some fascinating commentary about truth and how to tell someone's story. It's a very long book and I've seen it criticised for that but honestly I didn't want it to end. It had so many elements that I loved and it's reminded me how much I enjoy certain types of historical fiction.

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deedireads's review against another edition

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emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

I absolutely loved Great Circle. It’s sweeping, it’s emotional, it’s beautifully written. It kept me engaged and made me feel things — and what more can you ask for?

For you if: You like historical fiction that spans a character’s entire lifetime.

FULL REVIEW:

Great Circle officially landed on my TBR because it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A friend who read through the whole longlist earlier this year told me they thought it might turn out to be my favorite of them all. And I think, perhaps, they might be right! At least so far.

The book has two main characters. First is Marian Graves, born in 1914, who becomes one of the rare woman pilots of her time and eventually (don’t worry, this is not a spoiler) disappears trying to circumnavigate the globe. Marian’s story is probably 75% of the book, if I had to guess. We follow her from childhood and all the way through her life. The other main character is Hadley, a modern-day movie star cast to play Marian in a film, who learns more about her than anyone else.

The book is long, just under 600 pages, but I didn’t mind it. As you read, you really become so immersed in these characters and their lives. Some people at book club said they did sometimes wish it was shorter, but they couldn’t think of anything they’d cut. In fact, some people lamented the fact that there wasn’t even MORE from Hadley. Personally, I thought the balance between Marian and Hadley was just right and pulled the story along nicely.

Random thought: One of my favorite backlist reads this year was The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo, and while they don’t have a TON in common, they gave me similar feelings — a years-long timeframe, lots of pages that I was happy to read, and lots of emotions.

Anywho, if you have the patience for long books and love novels that span a lifetime, this is for you!

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emmagrace's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective slow-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? Yes

5.0

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sjanke2's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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