UPDATE: My review of this book's sequel, The Every, is out now.--------A 491 page soap box. Here's what's wrong with it, in no particular order:(1) Not offering anything new to the conversation. I imagine I will not be the only fan of dystopian literature who will be bored and feel this is retreading old territory already covered in books written long before the age of the internet. As a human being living in a first world country, the comparisons one can draw between real-life companies and the...

I really wanted to like this. The idea of a dystopian novel centered around the perils of the Internet (or the company/companies that control it) is a really appealing and relevant theme. There are parts of the book—the main character’s addiction to crowd-sourcing or sharing minute details about what’s happening around her—that absolutely feel like 50 Shades of Creepy. The big problem with The Circle is that the main character is completely flat. I didn’t understand her, her connections with oth...

Unfortunately, despite an intriguing premise and my high hopes, I feel obliged to give THE CIRCLE more frowns than smiles. In Mae's extreme/bizarre opinion, my "dislike" may as well equate to murder, or hatred at least. Really it's just disappointment. "Smiles":--The ending. Mae (view spoiler)[choosing the Circle over Ty (hide spoiler)] was the perfect outcome. Any sort of (view spoiler)['happy ending' (hide spoiler)] would have lost the book entirely to lameness. --The exploration of an interes...

If I had to come up with a one-sentence summary for this book, it would be this: if you've ever read one of those thinkpieces written by a smug baby boomer explaining why millinials are the worst and thought, man, I wish I had five hundred pages of this, then The Circle is for you!May Holland is a recent college graduate living sometime in the near future, when a company called the Circle has created a monopoly on all technology. The Circle has created TrueYou, a system that links a person's ent...

Imagine a character named Mark Holland. He's easily manipulated, does anything anyone tells him, is constantly worried how others see him, constantly thinks he's going to be fired even though he meets the company's expectations, and when he gets 97% approval rating he becomes convinced that the 3% expressing disapproval obviously want him dead and are plotting to murder him. He listens to people spout off distorted, uncomfortable bullshit, takes it all in, and says with wide-eyed wonder "You are...

”Outside the walls of the Circle, all was noise and struggle, failure and filth. But here, all had been perfected. The best people had made the best systems and the best systems had reaped funds, unlimited funds, that made possible this, the best place to work.”Did you ever want to live in a world where everything is perfect? Every step is fully automated, no wars, no crimes, no pollution, no problem that can’t be fixed? Well, you found it! Welcome to “The Circle” where they have the best jobs,

Noooooooooo! No! No! This book is creepy as hell! People in the world watching your every move! They can suck it. The only social media I do is Goodreads and google. This book makes you want to run away from even that! I still have a Facebook account but don't go there because I despise it. I don't do stupid twitter or Snapchat. Haven't done Instagram and not sure if I ever will. I should just go off the grid like the lovely Charlie Hunnam 😊💕Anyway, whatever. I wouldn't doubt they are already pu...

Update: The movie opens April 28th- in my area - with Tom Hanks. Regardless - what people rated this book ---1 star or 5 star. It makes for an engaging discussion. Yesterday Paul and I saw the movie trailer just BEFORE watching the YouTube update of the Apple Campus being built here in Silicon Valley... Steve Job's last creative design before he died. The 'Kingdom' ... haha in the ROUND off freeway 280 in Cupertino is like NOTHING I've ever seen built in the Bay Area in my lifetime. I loved this...

My rating: 1 of 5 starsI received this book free from LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.In the world introduced in ‘The Circle’, individuals become completely transparent and are stripped of their anonymity even when performing menial tasks. Mae Holland has just secured a position with The Circle thanks to her friend Annie, a high-ranking employee at The Circle. Mae’s involvement in the company slowly begins ove...

“We all know the world is too big for us to be significant. So all we have is the hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment.”This book is flat.The concept is great, but nothing new or revolutionary. The writing is basic so it won't take long to read the book. That's basically the good stuff.Now, I don't know if the author did it on purpose or just can't do any better, but the writing is anything but appealing, poetic or emotional in any way. It won't make you feel anything. It's shallow an...

"...what if we all behaved as if we were being watched? It would lead to a more moral way of life. Who would do something unethical or immoral or illegal if they were being watched?" A significant majority of our planet's residents has access to the Web. This has been the way for decades now. We were provided with a great instrument in the everlasting search for knowledge. Everything is there for us to grasp. By pushing a button, a key in the keyboard, by touching a screen, knowledge that wou

Dave Eggers is having a Klout moment: He’s just published a dystopian satire about social media called “The Circle.” On Sunday, the New York Times Magazine touted an excerpt on its cover. The blogosphere has lit up like the aurora borealis.At 500 pages, this relentless broadside against the corrosive effects of the connected life is as subtle as a sponsored tweet. Make no mistake: Eggers has seen the Facebook effect, and he does not “like” it. His parable of technological madness reads like a Bu...

A possible present day dystopian novel involving a young girl, Mae, as the protagonist who starts in a dead end job, is divorced, has two parents, one of which is not well, and is also separated from her very best friend Annie. Annie works for the 'Circle', the number one internet management company in the world. When Mae is hired at the 'Circle' with the help of her friend Annie, life-changing experiences lead her into a different world, a world we could all envision ourselves in someday.My tho...