The Invisible Circus Audiobook By Jennifer Egan cover art

The Invisible Circus

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The Invisible Circus

By: Jennifer Egan
Narrated by: Madeleine Lambert
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In Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan's highly acclaimed first novel, set in 1978, the political drama and familial tensions of the 1960s form a backdrop for the world of Phoebe O'Connor, age eighteen. Phoebe is obsessed with the memory and death of her sister Faith, a beautiful idealistic hippie who died in Italy in 1970. In order to find out the truth about Faith's life and death, Phoebe retraces her steps from San Francisco across Europe, a quest which yields both complex and disturbing revelations about family, love, and Faith's lost generation.

This spellbinding novel introduced Egan's remarkable ability to tie suspense with deeply insightful characters and the nuances of emotion.

©2012 Jennifer Egan (P)2012 AudioGO Coming of Age Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Inspiring
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Too focused on the Europe part. Good family dynamics. Econ is really good at that. I didn’t like the nasal voice of the reader, though I got used to it.

Time warp to SF in the ‘70’s

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I was entertained by the book. I enjoyed the narrator. The story? I can't decide if it was incredible or completely contrived.

I can't actually decide...

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Narration had some issues: Barry always sounds congested, and Phoebe’s voice is frequently too over the top. The story just wasn’t very compelling.

Underwhelming

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Her writing is like listening to music. She makes it seem easy the way the story flows along. True genius!

Hard to beat Jennifer Egan

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I couldn’t even finish a free book. Its just completely flat and not remotely engaging.

So wanted to enjoy this book

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A heart wrenching glimpse into the turmoil left behind by family trauma during the 70s while paralleling with the romanticized but troubled 60s while simultaneously following one young lady on a journey for understanding, closure, and self. What a beautiful story.

Feeling Melancholy

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I love metaphors, but his was too much. Every action and object seemed to require one. This style slows down the story and keeps the reader at a distance. From such a talented writer this was disappointing. I usually enjoy reading in print more than audio books but this one would have frustrated me had I read it as a paper book.
The story is...okay. The characters are not as well developed as in other work by this author. So, just pretty good but not really good work from one of my favorite writers.

Too Many Metaphors

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it was an interesting story about a younger sister's quest to find out what happened to her older sister when she died, but I cringed when I heard the narrator pronounce Corniglia with a hard "G". it's pronounced Kor-nee-lee-uh. not Kor-nig-lee-uh. Also Moscone's name is pronounced wrong, and the locals never call Los Gatos the way she did, the correct Spanish way. It's Loss-ga-tis. Someone from San Francisco would know this.

interesting story

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The author has a lovely writing style, and is most definitely talented. But this book is just overdone. If the characters were more likable perhaps you wouldn’t mind hanging in there, but it felt like hearing the same story over and over, just in a different geographical setting.

This was multiple books shoved into one.

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I very much loved the story,, but the narrator was way too much for me. At times I felt like she was just screaming the whole storyline of the main character and I didn't knew if I was going to make it through the whole book.

Loved the Story

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