Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

The Circle by Dave Eggers

3 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 But no, I've read plenty of outdated science fiction that was still extremely enjoyable.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.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Kidnapping, Car accident, Fatphobia, Suicide, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Kidnapping, Body shaming, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Alcohol

Minor: Police brutality, Slavery, Colonisation, and Misogyny

eule's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I like and loathe this book simultaneously. This book is important to read. It’s important to understand and stress the right to anonymity. „We must all have the right to disappear“ as a certain character (no spoiler) put it in the book. While I believe this book is crucial to read, I still hate it wholeheartedly. Why, you may ask?

• I hate nearly all characters, especially the main character, Mae Holland (arrogant, naïve, selfish, indecisive, biased, disgusting, facile, ignorant, … the list goes on)
• I hate the weird relationships she has (never call the tip of a penis crown again)
• I hate Mae’s non-existing personality (why did they chose poor Emma Watson in the movie???)
• I hate that this book has no chapters (Is it meant to be a circle with no ending or beginning?)
• I hate that character development is missing (she had so many chances to change her behavior), even though that’s the whole point of the book: she is supposed to represent the people blindly following a monopoly system 
• I hate the fatphobia and the CONSTANT MANIPULATION, HELP
• I hate and love simultaneously that the plot is „just“ about the life at the company and how it takes over the world
• I am confused about the tension. I was sometimes bored to death because she was rendering about her „dumb friends (Mercer and Annie) and family (her parents). And in the next moment I wanted to know if we will ever get revenge on this entitled bitch and the inveterate circle

You see, I am enraged about this book and that’s the whole point, I believe. We have to understand that this book, even though it was published 10 years ago, is a mirror to today’s reality (have Google, Facebook and co in mind). Still you could have easily shortened the book by 100/200 pages. 

Ps: thank you to my friend Nex for letting me buy this book from him :)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, Medical content, Body shaming, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Abandonment, Child death, and Colonisation

iridaceae's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal death, Cursing, and Sexual content

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Fatphobia, Murder, Rape, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide, Terminal illness, and War

Minor: Abandonment, Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Colonisation, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Excrement, Gore, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia