Reviews tagging 'Adult/minor relationship'

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

66 reviews

c_dalton's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful inspiring sad tense 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Blood, Abortion, Death of parent, Alcohol, and War

Minor: Animal death, Racism, Violence, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

juli_powers's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.5

This book primarily follows two story lines - the life of Marion Graves and that or Hadley who is cast as Marion in an indie film on her life. The author focuses on Marion and has an easy to follow quick note to begin each chapter that tells you where you are chronologically. While it occasionally jumps, it's quite easy to tell where and when you are. Marion, her brother Jamie and their friend Caleb have a rough childhood and all take different paths in life. Marion is dead set on flying planes and will do anything she can, including cropping her hair and dressing like a boy to smuggle moonshine for money, to do so. Meanwhile Hadley lost her parents in a plane crash and is similarly raised by her uncle until his untimely death. Hadley is wealthy from her movies and TV shows, but otherwise a mess. She ends up on a mission to discover what really happened with Marion and her plane disappearance. 

The one thing that threw me is that there are so many characters. It can be hard to recall who someone is. The author is quick to provide a back story on someone new and cleverly ties then into the story itself. This book ended and I returned to reread the beginning as it captures Marions thoughts before her final leg of the flight and it was great to reread it. This book was a wild ride that I just didn't want to put down. 

"I thought I would become more than I am, but instead I know I am less than I thought.

No one should ever read this. My life is my one possession.

And yet, and yet, and yet."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Abandonment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and War

Minor: Gun violence, Incest, Abortion, Pregnancy, and Lesbophobia

nicoleamanfu's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, and War

Moderate: Hate crime, Homophobia, and Misogyny

kaitlanl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, and War

Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Abortion, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

oliviareese's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

prettycloud's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I kept catching myself wanting a movie of this book, even though I know book-movies are often disappointing, and indeed the book itself shows how much movies can miss. But this book is so visually beautiful, a delight for the mind's eye that draws from perspective characters' longings and aesthetic sensibilities to set its scenes. Though it is a long book, I never felt weighed down—when the plot doesn't move forward, the characters do, and this book is much about people's relationships to themselves and each other as it is about Graves attempting her "great circle." I liked the meditations on disappearance and death, on people's purpose in life and the interactions of chance and fate. This book has so much life in it, so much energy and realness and joy. And yet it also explores the legendary, and there is a pervading larger-than-life feeling even as we read about Marian's day-to-day life. It will be a while before I finish processing this one, because the questions it asks are woven so neatly into the story itself, but they're there. I guess, bottom-line, if you find yourself spending too long reading the Wikipedia articles of celebrities, this book might be for you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and War

Moderate: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Suicide, Terminal illness, Vomit, Dementia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Biphobia, Body shaming, Child death, and Fire/Fire injury

About the adult/minor relationship:

There's a pretty extensive section where Marian is a teenager in a relationship with a gangster in his late twenties and early thirties. She loves and desires him, but he stalks, extorts, and rapes her as he becomes more desperate to make her into the woman he wants.

The main themes of the book have to do with death and grief, so that and suicide by extension are very present throughout the book, though the deaths that happen are seldom described in great detail.

kacyn21's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual content, Death of parent, and Abandonment

The author is clearly a good writer and has a way with words, but I was too disappointed by the frequent dysfunctional sexual scenarios that played out multiple times in the first 30 pages alone. It was too disturbing for me to continue onward. The storyline/plot is very interesting and I wish these scenes hadn’t been written so graphically and frequently. Takes away from the rest of the story.

booknerdnative's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, and War

Minor: Abortion

siobhanfuller's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, and Abandonment

stephbakerbooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

I didn't hate this book, I didn't love this book, it was very much a middle-of-the-road kind of book. I'm glad I read it, and I enjoyed parts of it. But I do think it was too long, and that made it hard to get through. I struggled with the audiobook too—it was hard to remember characters and dates, especially at the beginning, because there was a lot of back and forth between timelines and perspectives.

Anyway, things I liked include:
- Marian, of course, who gets some stellar development over the course of the story
- Jamie, the sweetest animal-loving vegetarian artist who I just wanted to hug
- all of the aviation stuff—learned a lot about planes
- the second half of the book
- older, Hawaii-living Caleb
- that the ending managed to surprise me, and it wasn't the kind of bittersweet/depressing/thought-provoking ending you'd expect from this kind of book. It was still thought-provoking, but in a different way that I liked and found more powerful

Things I didn't like:
- the first half of the book (and basically everything with Barclay McQueen...)
- most of Hadley's story...some of it was interesting but overall I was much more interested in Marian's story and wanted to stay in her storyline
- a lot of the relationships were doomed because of self-sabotage by the characters basically...I can only handle so much self-sabotage
- the length of this book

Basically I think I would've enjoyed this book a lot more if the beginning was pared down a lot, if it was just about Marian with no present-day timeline, and if I had read the physical book. I'm still glad I read it! But it's a hard one to recommend to people because of the length. Lots of people have loved it though, and there are some rave reviews out there. So read it if you want, and then let me know what you thought of it :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Rape, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Sexual violence, and Abortion