You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Very interesting read... I find myself constantly thinking about this book. It really hits home. I rated it 4-1/2 stars: it's a must read!
Plus: I just found out a movie will be made about this book, starring Emma Watson! I can't wait to see it.
Plus: I just found out a movie will be made about this book, starring Emma Watson! I can't wait to see it.
Well... What a read. I've read this type of book before, but man, is this getting closer to what we may experience in the near future? Mae honestly, she had no soul, she only saw The Circle, and wanted everything to do with the circle. I liked her the beginning when she had one and didn't care what people thought, but that soon was dismissed when she got so hung up on people not liking her, and not believing what The Circle closed could mean. She didn't see beyond or understand what was happening to her. Chick was crazy. I honestly hope we never get to this type of future where everyone knows everything about you and nothing is a secret or your not far from finding out everything about a person in under 5 minutes. Life happens when your out having fun, and this was disturbing for sure. How crazy would a world be if one business owned everything and knew everything?
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Literally the worst protagonist I have read. 5/5
A little slow but enjoyable! Really makes you think about current events, like most dystopian novels do.
What would you do in order to work at the largest business and social media network? Luckily for Mae Holland, she knew someone who was in the top 40 influential employees in The Circle, her best friend Annie. Annie dropped Mae's name and now she was here, but Mae has to keep her job. She began her employment doing simple customer service work. Then her superiors reminded her that social media is apart of her job description. She delved deeper and deeper still. This book did a great job in showing what a "complete" social media society would look like. It also showed how world surveillance would effect people. It meant no one could escape the eye of all users..and if they tried..well, you have to read to find out. *spoiler* It definitely had a George Orwell 1984 feeling to it, especially at the end. I rated this story 4/5 stars because there was a particular romantic partner that I didn't see the point of. It seemed forced. I didn't mind having the other romances because it made sense for the characters involved.
Mae Holland is thrilled when she gets hired at the world famous company The Circle. The Circle is the leader of technological advances and has basically monopolized the use of the internet and social media. In addition, they strive to streamline daily activities, so they found a way to integrate all social media accounts, payment options, purchase history, etc to create a single online identity.
In this new age of transparency, Mae is excited to see what else The Circle comes up with…until she has a strange interaction with a coworker who talks of the problems the lack of privacy can cause. The Circle is a book full of technological innovations, suspense, and moral questions, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
I really had a hard time putting The Circle down. I was immediately engaged with the story and completely fascinated by the inventions the company had created – many of which would be convenient to have today.
Part of what I loved about the book is how much it made me question the stance on privacy and anonymity. There were so many inventions and programs that The Circle wanted to implement that I could see as being both helpful but also a total removal of privacy, and I often questioned if the pros outweighed the cons.
I had a really hard time rating the book because while I loved the writing and learning more about the goals of The Circle including the inventions they wanted to make, I kept expecting something crazy to happen – some big event, similar to the way the story went with Divergent. That was not the case with The Circle, and I went back and forth on whether or not I felt it was missing something. Ultimately, I landed at 4.5 stars, and rounded up to 5 stars on Goodreads, specifically because I couldn’t put the book down and when I wasn’t reading it, I was definitely thinking about it.
I’ve read other reviews that said that they hated the ending. I actually liked it. By the end of the book, I had no doubts as to how it would end, and I liked that. I think the ending was absolutely what would happen in real life, regardless of whether or not I liked it, so I appreciated that it wasn’t necessarily a “happily ever after” ending with all loose ends tied up.
I liked Mae as the main character as much as I wanted to shake her sometimes! She definitely made some bad choices and occasionally struggled with her self worth. She tied a lot of what she felt about herself into what others thought of her. As much as it’s hard to read that, Mae is 24 and I don’t know many 24 year olds who don’t care at all what their peers think of them – I know I didn’t when I was 24. Hell, as much as I hate to admit it, I still struggle with not caring with what people thought of me, so honestly, that felt realistic to me.
All in all, I really enjoyed the book, and it made me think a lot about the world we live in today. Many of The Circle’s innovations felt like things I could actually see happening in real life, which made the book all the more creepy. The book has been adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, so I’m excited to see the movie – I’m hoping it does the book justice! This is definitely one I’d recommend for fans of the dystopian genre and anyone interested in the extremes the “selfie culture” could take. While this wasn’t a traditional “hard core” dystopian where the world is completely different than the one we live in, I think it still falls in this category. When all is said and done, this is still a book that’s on my mind as I fall asleep at night.
In this new age of transparency, Mae is excited to see what else The Circle comes up with…until she has a strange interaction with a coworker who talks of the problems the lack of privacy can cause. The Circle is a book full of technological innovations, suspense, and moral questions, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
I really had a hard time putting The Circle down. I was immediately engaged with the story and completely fascinated by the inventions the company had created – many of which would be convenient to have today.
Part of what I loved about the book is how much it made me question the stance on privacy and anonymity. There were so many inventions and programs that The Circle wanted to implement that I could see as being both helpful but also a total removal of privacy, and I often questioned if the pros outweighed the cons.
I had a really hard time rating the book because while I loved the writing and learning more about the goals of The Circle including the inventions they wanted to make, I kept expecting something crazy to happen – some big event, similar to the way the story went with Divergent. That was not the case with The Circle, and I went back and forth on whether or not I felt it was missing something. Ultimately, I landed at 4.5 stars, and rounded up to 5 stars on Goodreads, specifically because I couldn’t put the book down and when I wasn’t reading it, I was definitely thinking about it.
I’ve read other reviews that said that they hated the ending. I actually liked it. By the end of the book, I had no doubts as to how it would end, and I liked that. I think the ending was absolutely what would happen in real life, regardless of whether or not I liked it, so I appreciated that it wasn’t necessarily a “happily ever after” ending with all loose ends tied up.
I liked Mae as the main character as much as I wanted to shake her sometimes! She definitely made some bad choices and occasionally struggled with her self worth. She tied a lot of what she felt about herself into what others thought of her. As much as it’s hard to read that, Mae is 24 and I don’t know many 24 year olds who don’t care at all what their peers think of them – I know I didn’t when I was 24. Hell, as much as I hate to admit it, I still struggle with not caring with what people thought of me, so honestly, that felt realistic to me.
All in all, I really enjoyed the book, and it made me think a lot about the world we live in today. Many of The Circle’s innovations felt like things I could actually see happening in real life, which made the book all the more creepy. The book has been adapted into a movie starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, so I’m excited to see the movie – I’m hoping it does the book justice! This is definitely one I’d recommend for fans of the dystopian genre and anyone interested in the extremes the “selfie culture” could take. While this wasn’t a traditional “hard core” dystopian where the world is completely different than the one we live in, I think it still falls in this category. When all is said and done, this is still a book that’s on my mind as I fall asleep at night.