Reviews with content warning for Addiction - O Grande Círculo

this book is poetry in the sense of words strung together beatifically but also in the sense of the expanse of a single human life and what we choose to make of it.

this book captivated me, although i did find some parts a little slow and boring during the war; and the parts i wanted to be dug into the most were often glossed over. for example, Marian flying around the world was only in the last 60 pages or so when i expected it to be half the book worth. i also wished we got to see more emotion from Marian so we can connect with her more. i would have loved to see a deeper romance between her and Caleb, although i know that is not the point of the book. i also wish that Marian and Hadley's connection was deeper than it was with more of a shock factor. we do go into some parts of Hadley's life that are unnecessary, like the mushroom trip for example — i hated reading through that.

i have a discovery pilot flight tomorrow :)

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sshabein's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense 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? Yes

5.0

I honestly had not heard of this book, somehow, despite its many accolades and having only come out a year ago, but I picked it up to check off a box on Montana Book Company's reading challenge list. I am SO glad I did! Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead is the type of read where you think, "Oh, one more chapter..." and in a blink, you've read another 50+ pages.

Also, though that part of the story occurs during Prohibition, Shipstead writes about Montana correctly! The scenery feels real without being romanticized as something exotic. I think longterm MT residents can tell when our state is portrayed as an idea of a place rather than how it is, and this book doesn't fall into that trap. I can't speak to the other locations in the book (of which there are many), but I imagine they're fairly spot-on too.

There's so much feeling and subtext to the title itself, an expansiveness that really conveys the themes within. I won't say more, for risk of spoilers, but Marion's eventual globe-circling flight is just the scaffolding for so much more. I really, really recommend this one.

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saltycoffee's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective sad 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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sistelo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

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

4.5

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vikkom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This piece of fiction HITS on so many levels once it's finished. Judging by my engagement at the start I was definitely not expecting how many moments throughout that I would read a sentence and just sit there and stare and ponder, or bookmark to write down once I get up after keeping on reading.

I thought this book was going to be about this random lady Marian Graves attempting a north-south circumnavigation, and the fictional actress Hadley being fascinated and throwing herself into the history of Marian in preparation for the role. The book is about that, but I'd say that it's only about 10% that.

The rest of the book is about Marian Graves, and the people she loved and loved her, from before birth, to death; it is about Hadley, the starlet, and her journey with the pressures of hollywood, acting, falling in lust, and being... drawn to Marian and also knowing and feeling uncomfortable with the fact that the Marian she is playing is almost entirely reconstructed.

This book paints the sweeping arc of Marian's life, and the lives of the people that were most important to her. It deals with feeling multiple, contradictory feelings at once; it deals with estrangement from people you love; it deals with loving people and yet hating them; it deals with queer love in the 40s and 50s; it deals with the what-could-have-beens while acknowledging that sequences of events have a certain inevitability and circularity; and overall, it deals with the messy and complex and less-than-idyllic ways that humans connect. Lives are lived, opportunities are lost. People die. We go on.

N.B. one thing I would say though, is that it took me over half of the book (no small feat, it's a solid 300 pages) to actually get *into* the story. I think mainly because I wasn't expecting a grand sweeping whole-of-life tale, but the book comes around in a nice circle, once I realised that was what it was.

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danajoy's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

I listened to this as an audiobook while doing a very menial work task and despite the length it felt like it flew.
Marian is such a strong and determined protagonist but her life really is dominated by struggle.

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nialiversuch's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional informative inspiring 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? It's complicated

4.75

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