Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - The Circle

Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

The Circle by Dave Eggers

6 reviews

eachz's review against another edition

fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

God I hated this so much that I finished it out of spite. And then the ending was worse than I could have imagined.

I'm pretty sure the author has a humiliation fetish and I say this both because of the EXTREMELY nauseating way every unnecessary sexual encounter was described AND the fact that he put his name on this book.

The whole thing was extremely 12-year-old-who-thinks-hes-deep. Imagine taking a really interesting, nuanced topic like internet privacy and then writing a one-note book with the most BASIC take and no grey area. So much of the time was spent explaining the new tech being developed in this hypothetical era -- which has, by the way, wildly inconsistent levels of ability, which is a pet peeve of mine -- and zero time bringing any dimension or sign of life to the cast of boring, unlikeable, flat characters. No one's motivations remotely make sense, and no one seems to have any thoughts or conversations that aren't a ham-fisted monologue on one end or the other of the ideological spectrum.

For a while I wondered if I was just bothered because it was written 11 years ago and hasn't aged well in terms of the conversation around tech and privacy. But no, I've read plenty of outdated science fiction that was still extremely enjoyable. This was just a terrible book.

Content Warnings

ottercorg's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Usually it's hard for me to read a book with a main character that makes me so mad, but for this plot to really work, Mae had to play that role.

I love considering at which moment any given reader would finally say The Circle had gone to far. At which new implement does any given reader lose hope?

I read this book thinking about Meta, and now that I've finished I think about it in the context of Ai in this current world.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it. As always, I like books to neatly tie off all plotlines at the end and this one doesn't do that - but apparently this is a series, which means there's still hope...

Content Warnings