A review by honeybeeville
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
I don’t think was able to include all the triggers I encountered in the first 17% of the book that I did finish. I’m including some specifics below behind spoilers. It’s really unfortunate the directions this book ends up going as the premise is very interesting and could have been explored in a different way.
I had to stop when the book seemed to sexualize a child along with other issues. Very early on, child sexual abuse and the resulting effects of this trauma are described in some detail. I’m not sure why this needed to be included outside of creating a sense of difficulty around the birth of one of the main characters. I persevered after this though it did not feel like it was handled well. Then we come to the main character who is 12 or 13 and being described as very interested in sexual activity to the point of masturbartion being mentioned with an adult man being referenced. That is a hard no for me. Nearly immediately after, a side character/story were mentioned that felt unrelated and also did not seem to be handled well by the author.
After this, I didn’t care what happened next. There was no way I was reading further.
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