Having read and liked a couple of others by Egan lately, I delved back to her early work. From the beginning, this one was sluggish and just felt really uninspired to me. It was a labor to get through, and I found myself skimming at times just to advance toward the end. The prose was fine but not beautiful, and the story just didn't land for me. If this had been my first Egan, I doubt I'd have read more. ( )

A wonderful novel detailing one woman's search for the truth behind her sister's suicide. In the process she grows up and faces some uncomfortable truths about her family's past. On her journey through Europe, retracing her sisters steps, she comes to terms with the fact that "truth" is not always a "fun" thing... ( )

I fought this book for a while. I'm not sure why. My goal was to reject it. A first novel--I'm too good for that, I thought. The 60s! I lived through that--there's nothing left to say about it. In the end, I lost the fight.

Phoebe starts off stuck in a familiar place, thinking she's the only one who's ever been there and simultaneously thinking she's never been anywhere. It's the kind of angst which has no solution inside of its self-definition. She goes looking in the totally wrong direction for relief--thinking there was somewhere outside of herself she needed to get to. What she finds is both unpredictable and inevitable. There! I didn't spoil anything!

Unlike many novels, films, tv shows, the psychology of the characters never seemed false, or only put there to make the story work. I believed everyone and everything. The tricks I expected to find, the places where I could point my finger and say, "nice plot device," freeing me from the spell, were absent. I was forced to go along with Phoebe on her quest, even as the other characters tried to stop her. We all failed. Like Phoebe, we are survivors so we had to fail and then we had to figure out what to do with our failure. Ms. Egan took the risks and didn't fail. ( )

Think The Lovely Bones, but from the perspective of a living, and seriously disturbed, bratty youngest child. Jennifer Egan's novel might have been written first, but I know which I prefer.

Phoebe O'Connor is eighteen in late 1970's San Francisco, living with her widowed mother and trying to deal with the death of her idolised older sister, Faith. After learning a few home truths, Phoebe sets off on a lone trip to Europe, tracing Faith's last steps and seeking either ghosts or answers. In Germany, she runs into her sister's old boyfriend, nicknamed 'Wolf', who agrees to join Phoebe's pilgrimage to the Italian cliffs where Faith fell to her death. The two fall into a depraved physical relationship, shagging constantly for a good quarter of the book I could have lived without, before Wolf decides to tell Phoebe more uncomfortable revelations about her sister.

Phoebe is desperately unlikeable from the start, selfish and immature, but I found the first, San Francisco-based part of the story still quite easy and interesting to read. Then Phoebe throws a tantrum because her mother tells her that (a) her father, who was obsessed with Faith, was actually a terrible amateur artist, and (b) she's fallen in love with her boss and finally moving on with her life, putting the family home on the market, and the whole novel started sliding down hill from there. There's a trite, 'finding religion' passage, a 'taking acid' stream of consciousness chapter, wall to wall introspection, and then Wolf, who is obviously obsessed with the youthful mirror of the late love of his life. I telegraphed his 'confession' very early on, but all the blather about Faith's involvement in terrorism even managed to dampen that climax.

So, watch the film with Cameron Diaz for a potted version of this miserable tale, but otherwise I recommend reading The Lovely Bones or Tales of the City. ( )

The title refers partly to a Diggers' sponsored happening in late 1960s San Francisco, which was a strong influence on the book's characters Wolf and Faith. Faith is the dead older sister of the main character Phoebe, who, after graduating from high school in 1978, flies off to Europe following the trail of Faith's postcards from eight years before. The title also refers to the reverberations from the '60s felt as inner turmoil in younger brothers and sisters who weren't quite old enough to be there. This book was recommended to me by one of the organizers of this year's Ocean State Writers' Conference, which managed to snag Jennifer Egan to be the keynote speaker before she "beat out" Jonathan Franzen for this year's National Book Critics Circle award. ( )

Egan is always on my "must read" list, so I went back to her first novel, not expecting much. If only all first novels were so good! Egan has a special talent for describing & defining & illustrating close relationships that are off-kilter, permanently or temporarily. Her characters' actions & emotions are coherent unto themselves. You think you might know & understand them. Dialogue spot on. Situations interesting. Filled with good stuff, not just overlong location descriptions. Wish I wrote that! ( )

It was well written but boring. It is about a teenager tracing the path of her "flower child" sister, who died while trekking around Europe in the'60's. The premise is a good one, the time period is exciting and certainly interesting but after 150 pages of tedium, I gave up.

http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2013/01/201267-invisible-circus-jennifer-egan.html ( )

This book was the best I've read in a long time. I found it much better than the polyphony of 'A Visit from the Goon Squad'. I see there's a 2001 movie starring Cameron Diaz, and I'll have to watch it. Although emotional and depressing, this book is a wonderful coming of age story of a young, confused girl with a very dysfunctional family in San Francisco (and Europe) in the post flower child 60's and 70's. ( )

This is Jennifer Egan’s first novel, and from what I could gather, her suceeding works were somewhat bolder and more unconvential in their treatment of the novel form than this one, which is basically a straightforward realistic narrative about a girl growing up and stepping out of the shadow of her older sister who had been determining all her previous life.

The Invisible Circus has “first novel” written all over it: While it is very cleverly constructed, there is a certain awkwardness in the way it shows off its themes, makes its motifs and imagery rather too obvious and blatant; it is trying a bit too hard to impress its readers, putting one in mind of an over-eager puppy. But then, just as with cute puppies, we tend to be lenient towards first novels and look on their good sides first, of which The Invisible Circus indeed has many, by far outweighing the few small niggles.

The novel’s first part takes place at home in San Francisco and is centred around the memories Phoebe, the novel’s protagonist, retains of her father and the way he always favoured her elder sister Faith and ends with her mother destroying the image of him Phoebe always had held; in the second part Phoebe is travelling through Europe following the traces of Faith and it ends with Phoebe throwing her sister’s picture and postcards into the Seine; finally, the third part (taking up about half of the novel) is about Phoebe almost literally becoming her sister and ends with her letting go of Faith after learning the truth about her and, in a way, finding herself. The novel’s latter half falls somewhat apart, at least in contrast to the tightly structured first one, and I think I stumbled across several editorial oversights in that part, too (and they must have been quite glaring if I noticed them), unless there is some problem with the e-book missing parts which I suppose is also possible.

The Invisible Circus captures the mood and atmosphere of the late seventies and their sixties-nostalgia perfectly (one nice touch is how Phoebe is so wrapt up in her pining for the Sixties past that she completely misses the exciting things happening in her present – there is only a single, very brief mention of a punk during her stay in London and she barely even notices him). Egan also paints a very vivid picture of both the heady enthusiasm and the utter cluelessness of youth, of what it feels like to pass the threshold into adulthood, both the joy and pain of it. I think The Invisible Circus works even better as a coming-of-age story than as period portrait, Jennifer Egan’s depiction of Phoebe’s growing-pangs so keen and intense at times that it got under my skin and made me feel outright uncomfortable.

Despite some minor flaws, I liked The Invisible Circus very much. In fact, now that I am writing this, I cannot help but notice that those flaws I mentioned earlier, classical first novel flaws, are also a sign of a novelist growing into her craft, growing up as a novelist – in fact, there does seem to be a very marked analogy between the novel and its protagonist, both struggling to stand on their own feet, to find their own voice (which makes me wonder whether there might be some writing idol whose overwhelming influence The Invisible Circus tries to escape?). So maybe the flaws are not flaws at all, but a kind of metafictional mimesis, form imitating subject matter. In either case, this is as a very impressive debut, and Jennifer Egan another author I will have to read more of.

This book was a real hour killer. Everytime I looked at the clock it was way later than I expected. This book is a very very good read. It takes you up and sucks you completely into the story. The author writes very open and creates a world as if you were in it at the moment you read!. ( )

A very unique story with great character development. ( )

A story about a young girl who follows her sister's trail through Europe to discover what really happened to her. The book is set in the late 1970's and she only partially remembers the 1960's when her sister was coming of age. I thought a couple parts of the book were a little drawn out but the story was captivating. ( )

Protagonist 18-year-old Phoebe's coming-of-age story is told with so much raw emotional truth, it sometimes hurts. Deals with family favoritism, loneliness, misperceptions, and idealism. I feel more understanding of the hippie movement having read this book. ( )

This is one of the most remembered books I've ever read. I love the way the author tells the story. I loved it. ( )

The Invisible Circus is both a travel novel and a look into the hippie culture of the 70s. A moving tale of sisterhood. ( )

A look at what at we have and what we want to believe. A young girl in awe of her older sister traces her steps across the world leading to the place of her death. With her is her sister's old boyfriend who is also looking to lay the past to rest. She finds the sometimes love only exists in a rarified environment as do old dreams of who we believe or want people to be. ( )

I found this book to be very interesting. IT lead me to read another by Egan which I found very disappointing. Maybe I could relate better to this one because I have a sister and that is the main focus of the story. ( )

I enjoyed this somber story about an 18-year-old girl in '70s San Francisco who is searching to find the truth behind her older sister who died 8 years prior. Her search takes her across Europe, eventually to Italy, where the sister died by jumping off a bridge after months on the lam. There are some cliches, where romance is involved, and reading an acid trip is a bit like a trip in itself, but I found Phoebe to be likeable, and I wanted her to grow up, move on, and succeed, which, it's safe to say, is what she will eventually do. ( )