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csearsthompson's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-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? Yes
4.5
kaznar342's review against another edition
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.0
noirverse's review against another edition
3.0
final rating is 3.5 stars. beginning was slow but picked up at the middle. gave me something to think on even with the somewhat heavy handed writing. the most enjoyable part of it for me was the sex scenes were unnecessary and painfully awkward but thankfully short. despite the flaws, i liked this book for making me reflect on how we live today and the fact that several of the sci-fi setups, as exaggerated it was, came uncomfortably close to being something i could see happen tomorrow with no questions asked.
as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Spoiler
realizing the slow progression of mae's transformation into the villain, with the dark but apt ending included.as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
erinjarvis's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-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
4.0
jfdietrich's review against another edition
2.0
To keep things short: This is a book in which hardly anything happens, and when they do, you're not at all surprised, except perhaps by how unrealistic and static the characters are. The story is one long cautionary tale, but one that lacks sophistication and depth while also being too long by half. Can't recommend this.
booksonthefloor's review against another edition
3.0
This is when I hate that you can't do half stars. This book was solidly 3.5 stars for me. I truly loved the beginning, as Mae becomes a Circle employee and is kind of indoctrinated into their way of thinking. This is actually a slim majority of the book and I really felt like time was taken into developing a world, for a young professional, that felt both exciting and overwhelming (as evidenced by the number of screens that are continuously added to her desk).
The part of the book that I struggled with was when Mae receives her own camera and "goes transparent," which is the 2nd half of the book. She is so quickly adapted to the Transparency project, and I feel as though most people would not be.
Even as her world gets smaller and smaller (there is a portion of the book where she admits that she does not leave the Circle much anymore because the outside world is too messy for a camera), she seems unable to see how her camera and "Going Transparent" is effecting the lives of other around her. And in that sense, it makes Mae seem shallow and kind of power hungry, which is a huge change in her from the beginning of the book, where the stress of her father's MS weighs on her greatly.
When they say "10 Million people have gone transparent," I thought to myself, "Not really; 10 million people bought the camera." We all have free will and would remove our cameras throughout the day. You can think of companies putting rules into place about taking cameras into sensitive meetings. It seems hard to believe that if not people, then COMPANIES would be so willing to allow their intellectual property be shared just because a person wants to wear a camera. So while I could buy in to Mae's enthusiasm to some degree, it was harder for me to buy in to the global enthusiasm for wanting every inch of the planet tracked and uploaded.
This book was easy for me to read and overall well written.
The part of the book that I struggled with was when Mae receives her own camera and "goes transparent," which is the 2nd half of the book. She is so quickly adapted to the Transparency project, and I feel as though most people would not be.
Even as her world gets smaller and smaller (there is a portion of the book where she admits that she does not leave the Circle much anymore because the outside world is too messy for a camera), she seems unable to see how her camera and "Going Transparent" is effecting the lives of other around her. And in that sense, it makes Mae seem shallow and kind of power hungry, which is a huge change in her from the beginning of the book, where the stress of her father's MS weighs on her greatly.
When they say "10 Million people have gone transparent," I thought to myself, "Not really; 10 million people bought the camera." We all have free will and would remove our cameras throughout the day. You can think of companies putting rules into place about taking cameras into sensitive meetings. It seems hard to believe that if not people, then COMPANIES would be so willing to allow their intellectual property be shared just because a person wants to wear a camera. So while I could buy in to Mae's enthusiasm to some degree, it was harder for me to buy in to the global enthusiasm for wanting every inch of the planet tracked and uploaded.
This book was easy for me to read and overall well written.
charlotte112's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I loved how dystopian and "Black Mirror" esque it was. I can completely believe in a technological organisation craving access to data in this way and the lengths they would go to to achieve it. It was a slow burn but I actually think it needed to be to show the brainwashing over an extended and believable period of time. I am still not sure how she couldnt tell that Ty and Kalden were one in the same as there would have been photos of him being one of the founding members and this was the biggest flaw of the book for me I enjoyed the slow indoctrination that we experience first hand through Mae but there were certainly some parts that could have been shortened in this lengthy book. My heart breaks a bit fir her parents too