I was intrigued by the premise of The Great Circle, but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations.  I read about 150 out of 580 pages before deciding to DNF this novel.

While I typically enjoy a novel with multiple timelines, I found the opening of this one confusing.  There were too many time shifts and it was difficult at first to figure out how they all connected.

From the part that I read, it seemed like quite a bit of the narrative wasn't necessary and I didn't feel like slogging through another 400 pages to finally make it to Marian's final flight.

Marion Graves and her twin brother Jamie were only six weeks old when their first brush with notoriety occurred.  They were passengers on the cruise ship their father captained when it ran into trouble and capsized.  Many died including their mother and their father was shamed since he chose to save the babies rather than be the last man on board.  He was imprisoned and the twins were sent to Montana to be raised by his brother.
The uncle had no idea how to raise children and was an alcoholic.  He basically let the children run free and raise themselves.  Marian fell in love with flying when some barnstormers came through town.  She was determined to do whatever it took to learn how to fly, dropping out of school at fourteen so she could earn money.  Marian married young to a bootlegger who wanted to control her.  Marian flew the liquor into the States for him but eventually left him to be free.  She ran to Alaska and took another name, living under the radar and flying visitors and supplies into small Alaskan towns.  

Later she was a pilot in World War II, one of the women who flew transport craft from the factory to where they were needed.  She met Ruth and Eddie, a couple she grew close to.  Ruth was also a pilot and Eddie was a navigator.  After the war, she was at loose ends until she met with a woman of great fortune who offered to sponsor Marian's dream.  That dream was to fly around the world, flying over the North and South poles, a flight that had never been made.  Marian could not be dissuaded and took off with Eddie as her navigator.  They never made it and their bodies were never found although the last sighting of them had been in Antarctica.  

Now, one hundred years later, an actress is hired to portray Marian in a film about her life.  The actress, Haley Baxter, has a fellow feeling for Marian.  Haley's parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was a small child and she was also raised by an uncle.  Haley became a child star in Hollywood and then when a scandal broke, she was hounded off her movie and television career.  She needs a comeback badly and the film about Marian might just provide it.  But as she reads the script, starts to make the film and researches Marian's life, she thinks she has found out some of Marian's biggest secrets.  What should she do with this new information?

Maggie Shipstead has written a novel that is fascinating about a woman who won't be boxed into anyone else's thoughts about what she should do.  The novel has been nominated for both the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize For Fiction.  Marion is a mysterious woman, determined to do whatever she chooses rather than following society's strictures.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

Great Circle is a dual timeline saga of two women: One a pioneering aviatrix of the early 20th century; the other the actress portraying her in a biopic in the present day.

This is an ambitious book and there is certainly much to praise here especially the quality of the writing which whilst being richly descriptive is never overblown. However, the length of the book is exhausting, there are sections which I think distract the attention from the main characters thus overwhelming the really good premise.

The sections concerning Marian and Jamie are really good. The characters of the twins is vividly portrayed and they couldn’t be more different. Marion is a thrill seeker whose life is colourful and varied, she’s courageous and brave. Whereas Jamie is a shy, sensitive and talented artist. I love reading about Marion’s life which is absolutely fascinating taking us on a circular journey from life growing up in Montana, through the Prohibition years with bootlegging and marriage, to Alaska, the war years and finally the polar quest and much of this is riveting. I like how she ventures boldly into a male dominated aviator world especially in World War 2.

If this book was only focused on Marian, and removed the whole ‘current day’ portion of the story, I would have loved this a lot more. At no point did I care about Hadley.

First off thank you to Knopf Double Day Publishing group and NetGalley for this digital ARC

Great Circle is a A beautiful book!, It is an interesting combination of historical fiction and modern-day Hollywood vibes. I almost gave up on this book because the characters are hard to follow (there's a lot of them). However, I advise sticking it out because these characters will leave a lasting impression!

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Sometimes these long reads really intimidate me, but having an e-book version really helped! I enjoyed this.

I admired the epic nature and structure of this novel, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was frequently bored while listening to it. I would have liked more connection between the two threads. Like many audio books, it may be a better experience to actually read it.

A beautiful, interesting combination of historical fiction and modern-day Hollywood. I almost gave up on this book, as the beginning is a confusing whirlwind of many different characters, but I'm so glad I stuck it out. I'll be thinking about Marian, Hadley, and the other intriguing characters for a long time.

This novel has it all.. shipwrecks, the depression, bootlegging, whore houses, world war, and much more.
This is a dual timeline, there is also in current time, an actress named Hadley who is playing Marian in a film.
I am glad that the Hadley portions were not long and that the book was mostly Marian’s life because those were the great parts of the book!

At its essence, Great Circle depicts the growth process of two women who are seeking to defeat cultural expectations to create lives that are truly their own.  The first woman -- Marian Graves -- knows that her destiny is to be a pilot and she is driven to be the first pilot to literally create the Greatest Circle by circumnavigating the globe via the North and South Poles.  The second woman-- Hadley Baxter -- is an actor seeking to break out of insipid teen movie roles (think Kristen Stewart in the Twilight films) by playing the lead in a movie film based on Marian Grave's life.  The first half of the novel drags, but don't give up on it.  The second half of the novel really picks up by focusing on the life of Marian Graves as an adult.  The story of Hadley Baxter fades away to the point that her primary purpose appears to be imparting information she gained from others while filming the movie to let us know what really happened to Marian.  This portion of the novel really held my interest and contains a number of poignant scenes that moved me to ugly cry.  4.5 out of 5.0 stars.  Highly recommended.          

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Just a warning that this is a 600 page epic story about the determination of Marion Graves to become an aviator, and her search to break records and be the best pilot.  It was slow at the beginning, but picked up momentum.  I really enjoyed the book because of the interesting life that Marion and her brother live.  Her strong intuition and ability to manipulate each situation to benefit her dream, yet still knew exactly what she would owe in return was inspiring.   

Marion worked hard and used her determination to flying in a great circle from pole to pole in 1950 along with her navigator Eddie Bloom.  In between her storyline, Hadley Baxter was casted to play Marian in a film a century later.  Both women had to work against the odds and prejudices to get what they wanted.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for allowing me to read this book for an honest review.

I had to give up on this one after a little over a quarter of it (which equates to a solid 150-200ish pages), which was a great disappointment. The pacing was just far too slow, and the writing and plot were not compelling enough to keep me engaged in it. The blurbs all promised this would be epic in scope, but to me, it felt like it wasn't going much of anywhere. I will still provide a 3-star rating because I think there's a good chance it might improve with the rest of the book, but given the rate at which I've been falling into book slumps lately, it was not worth it for me to keep pushing through a story that felt like it was pretty stagnant. Literary fiction is usually something I love, but this was a miss.

(As an aside, I feel a little less guilty about DNFing/leaving this review, as I got the title when it was on Read Now, not as a directly approved request.)

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC. This is a big, bold beautiful tale filled with complicated relationships and spanning time periods. I believed every character, though rooted for Marion most of all. I've purchased the book for my school and a staff member is currently reading it. Great for historical fiction fans as well as for anyone who loves strong female protagonists.

Unfortunately I only made it through about 20% of this book. It was very slow, and I just couldn't see how it would pick up. I've heard it's great but didn't want to invest the time to read such a long book.

A complex story involving the lives of 2 women over 80 years apart.  Marion Graves an aviator and Hadley Baxter an actress lives were filled with overcoming childhood traumas.  It’s a blend of history and fiction.  I enjoyed the book.  However, I felt it could be cut down from the 600+ pages.

Thank you #NetGalley, #RandomHousePublishing and #MaggieShipstead for the advance readers copy for my honest review.

Touching story of two women whose lives intersect. Very much enjoyed the character development of all. Bit too long and drawn out for me but I enjoyed learning about female aviators in general. So thankful to netgalley for this ARC.

I was so looking forward to this book as I have read Ms. Shipstead's other novels, but I think this is a real departure for her--not at all what I was expecting.  This was a big book with a big story, as well as a second story that was happening in the "now"--I preferred the story of the past.  I liked how at the end of Marian's life everything was reconciled in a satisfactory way--I guess it was always what I wished for Amelia Earhart and did not get, somehow this made it better.

This was a difficult (and lengthy) book to get through, but I found it to be worth the read.

I appreciated the unique way the novel was set up across 2 different time periods, focusing on 2 different female protagonists. Marian Graves, born in 1914, drops out of school to follow her dream of being a pilot. Getting to her goal, however, burdens her with a lifetime debt that she's never able to fully pay back. A century later, Hadley Baxter is an actress that is cast to play Marian Graves in a film about her disappearance and the mystery behind it - and their lives then become interweaved.

The characters are complex and well-developed, the messaging strong and profound, and Shipstead's writing ties the different perspectives and events together smoothly.

I read this book as a book club pick and we all absolutely loved it! Wow what a saga. It is a big book but I read it over 4 days of my half term as I couldn't put it down. Thank you for arc netgalley and the publisher.

Marion as a character immediately draws you in and makes you want to learn more about her story. We know early on that her plane goes down in Antarctica but the journey of how Marion gets there is the real story. In this novel we are focused on three separate story lines, Marion's, Jamie's and Hadley's and how each intertwines together. In the end, I enjoyed this novel and the various characters - especially Jamie and his growth. Marion n the other hand was never really a likable character and even though she went through many struggles I didn't feel much character growth. She ultimately felt selfish and single minded. I also felt this story was unnecessarily long. With the multiple timelines and POVs things easily got confusing and I had to remind myself who characters even were as they popped back into the story. I think this story could have easily been half the length and gotten across Marion's life better. Truth be told - the entire Hadley story line could have been cut. It was interesting to see how the movie about Marion's life and Hadley's portrayal of her mixed in, but I kept finding myself wanting to go back to the past and not be in the present day. It was distracting. Also there is a lot of sexual encounters in this story. Some flowed well in the narrative and were necessary, but others felt shoved in and unneeded. All in all, this was a good historical fiction about females in aviation, and I learned a lot, but the extra throughout the novel distracted me too much and made this story drag at multiple points.