Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead

5 reviews

booksandmo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious medium-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Rape

Moderate: Death of parent, Pregnancy, Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Child abuse, Blood, Injury/injury detail, Child death, Grief, Pedophilia, Gore, and Death

Minor: Abortion

maryclaire92's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

Reading this started as a marathon, but finished in a sprint! I enjoyed learning every little tidbit I could from every scrap of text about Marion. The switches in POV and time kept the story fresh and added to the momentum for me. I found myself the least interested in the modern actress Hadley who is portraying Marion in a film, but loved the way that she was tied in more meaningfully towards the end and couldn’t put the book down for the last 150 pages or so. 

If I’m being honest, it dragged at times for me, but that can also be attributed to me reading it towards the end of this semester of grad school. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, War, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Rape, Blood, Confinement, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Abortion, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Grief, Homophobia, and Misogyny

anapthine's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, War, Death, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual content, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Injury/injury detail, Stalking, Alcohol, Blood, and Eating disorder

Minor: Murder, Antisemitism, and Gun violence

vikkom's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and War

Moderate: Suicide, Blood, Drug use, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, and Hate crime

Minor: Abortion and Child death

c_dalton's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Cursing, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Death of parent, Alcohol, Alcoholism, War, Abortion, Blood, and Death

Minor: Violence, Pregnancy, Animal death, Racism, and Injury/injury detail