Book Review: Circling the Sun

Book Review:  Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

Summary by Goodreads:

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s. Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir Out of Africa.

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature’s delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships.

Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it’s the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl’s truest self and her fate: to fly.

Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain’s powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit.

My Thoughts:

When I first began Circling the Sun, I thought it would be all about Beryl Markham's dream to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.  It starts out on the very day that Beryl Markham takes off on her extraordinary journey to fly across the Atlantic. Instead, this story was about so much more.  

I was unaware of the truth behind this fictional autobiography until I researched a little deeper about Markham.  Not a fan of McClain's book, The Paris Wife, I was a bit leary of requesting this from NetGalley, but I am so glad that I did. Circling the Sun caught my attention in the Prologue and continued to engage me as I learned about Markham's childhood in Kenya, where she was raised solely by her father on his horse farm 

Circling the Sun is a story about this young woman's life.  One that is lived outside the norm.  Beryl Markham never followed the path that most young women did during the 1920s.  She was forced to grow up quickly - both her mother and father left her behind before she was seventeen.  Married by sixteen and ready for a divorce by eighteen.  Formal schooling was not for her as she learned everything by doing.  Beryl worked harder than most women to make a life of her own.  She was the first woman to receive her English horse training certification and then went on to train several winning horses over the years.  Throughout all of her young success, Beryl never found true happiness.  She was always looking for it in the wrong places and made some horrible choices that affected herself and well as friends and family around her.  In the end, she does become the first woman to attempt to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. While I thought this would be the focus from the beginning, I realized there was so much more to Beryl Markham's life. 

Overall, I gave this book 4 stars.  While I didn't agree with many of the choices that Beryl made in her life, I kept hoping in the end she would find true love and happiness.