Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

O Grande Círculo by Maggie Shipstead

35 reviews

definebookish's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

5.0

This was a surprise – a Booker-shortlisted epic that hit somewhere between a documentary about Amelia Earhart and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and I loved it.

Great Circle is the story of fictional pioneering aviator Marian Graves, who becomes obsessed with aeroplanes in childhood, flies Spitfires during WWII, and eventually vanishes during an attempt to fly around the globe via both poles. Fifty years later, young actor Hadley Baxter is cast in a Hollywood biopic about Marian, and finds herself compelled to dig deeper into the unanswered questions about her disappearance.

I don’t often read novels this long – I baulk at the commitment, and naturally gravitate towards tauter, sparser storytelling – but Great Circle enthralled me. It’s vast by nature, spanning decades as well as the globe in its 600 or so pages. It captures the kind of energy I associate with America in the decades before WWII, and England during it; the chapters set between 1909 and 1950 feel dynamic, frenetic with change, at times precarious. It feels cinematic, which isn’t always a characteristic I enjoy in a novel, but here it’s exhilarating.

While this is very much a book about Marian, it puts her less under a microscope and more a wide-angle lens. So we’re introduced to secondary characters in the years prior to her birth, and sometimes we leave adult Marian for months at a time to follow her twin brother at pivotal moments of his life. Hadley’s chapters make up a lesser part of the narrative, but I loved them. They reminded me of the actors’ scenes in the movie adaptation of The French Lieutenant's Woman, in reverse – making Marian feel more like a real historical figure rather than a construction.

In fact, I’d have liked a few more of Hadley’s chapters, and perhaps a little less of the secondary character bottlenecks. Absolutely not less of the book overall, though. There’s a passage where Marian’s brother, an aspiring artist, talks about trying to capture the impression of infinite space on a (relatively) tiny canvas, and I think Maggie Shipstead has done that. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Moderate: Pedophilia

ladymirtazapine's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Abortion, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Rape, Sexual assault, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War

emmagrace's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and War

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Pedophilia, and Pregnancy

Minor: Abortion, Abandonment, Animal death, Death of parent, Homophobia, Infidelity, Racism, and Suicide

sarahyjackson's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.5

A bit more despairing than I typically enjoy books to be. I enjoyed the characters, the dual narratives, and the broader historical context. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Pedophilia

Moderate: Death of parent and Alcoholism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Animal cruelty

readingwithcats's review against another edition

This was a tough DNF for me. The prose (most of the time...ugh, cabbage) was beautiful, I didn’t even mind the occasional wandering tangents. But what I couldn’t stomach was the never-ending sexual violence against women; in the first 20% alone we had:

incest, sexual molestation of a child, and rape (though it’s not actually called out as that).

Nope, I just can’t with this anymore. Too bad, without all the sexual misery this could’ve been an amazing story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Incest, Sexual violence, and Pedophilia

Moderate: Suicide