Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - O Grande Círculo

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

O Grande Círculo by Maggie Shipstead

94 reviews

jesshindes's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

5.0

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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baguettegay's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

I thought this was just okay. For all of the wonderful things I’ve heard about it, I guess I just expected too much. I actually skimmed the last few chapters and just read the ending.
It wasn’t all bad; I think the two lives that Marian and Hadley both led existing as parallels was brilliant. I just think the time jumps were weird and it took me 100+ pages to feel any sort of connection to either story line.

I also take off stars when there are unnecessary assault scenes (not one, not two, but too many.) There are plenty of other ways to make a point without detailing something so incredibly horrific on more than one occasion.

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c_dalton's review against another edition

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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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juli_powers's review against another edition

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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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