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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Left me thinking about the impacts of social media and technology...and made me want to delete everything.
funny
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
fast-paced
So I can't say I liked the book, but it did succeed in making me feel anxious with the stress of sending smiles and frowns and etc. BUT I honestly had a lot of trouble getting into the story cause I couldn't empathise with Mae at all. Like 0%. In fact, I kind of disliked her so much that I kind of just wanted her life to get worse and worse. She seemed more concerned about getting laid than, you know, standing up for herself, so I just found her super annoying. She's the main reason I've given this book less stars cause I really couldn't stand her.
Good, quick to read and some interesting and timely questions come to mind about the role of big companies and the convenience of making our lives easier vs being pampered and dependent and manipulated
A good dystopian storyline that feels all-too close to reality but...the writing just didn't impress me. I was so wowed by Eggers' writing when I was younger that I expected more. Maybe it was intentional--to mimic the loss of beautiful language as we move to short one-line back and forth communication-- but the language in this book was tedious at times and if it weren't for the content of the story, I might have given up on the book.
More creepy than scary. Unfortunately, the main character, Mae, is a vapid little twit. Still, an interesting story that reinforces how much I enjoy my privacy.
Superb speculative fiction (or is it? Hmmm ...). Many will automatically classify this as a dystopian novel, but there are a lot of readers who will see it as straight utopian fiction, and its structure and tone is indeed less like the dystopian sci-fi of the past 3/4-century than it is similar to the utopian fiction that preceded it (albeit with a healthy dose of ironic detachment from its surface earnestness). The story traces the evolution of the virtual, voluntary Panopticon that is today's social media-saturated society into, basically, The Borg. Benign conveniences and diversions, courtesy of "The Circle" (aka Google-Facebook-Twitter) sneak out of the realm of social life into work life, education and governance, then become aggregated under the aegis of distinctly Orwellian mantras like "all that happens must be known" and "privacy is theft." The genius of Eggers' writing here is to articulate several persuasive arguments for signing on with the movement to "go transparent," painting some compelling affordances to compensate for the new limitations on freedom. As Huxley wrote, "you pays your money and you takes your choice," and Eggers shows some pretty amazing things you can get for your money ... for a while, anyway, then the totalitarian bill comes due. A climactic presentation of a digital bill of rights shows the author's hand as siding with the book's voices of caution.