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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
Compelling read. I only gave it four stars, because it was chilling and creepy and that makes it hard for me to say it was "good". But as always, Eggers is a great writer and it was hard to put down.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
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
How life change when social media takes more and more attention and time in life.
Gradually spending more time online than experiencing life with real people.
Mae lands her dream job at the Circle. Starts working in the Customer Experience team and gradually become famous. Interesting and uncomfortable read about sharing everything in life with the world.
As the story unfolds, we get know Mae, her friends and parents, and we see how Mae's relationships with the people around her gradually shift. The life she living is perfect with everything she could possibly want, and the comforts come with subtle changes and limitations in options.
Gradually spending more time online than experiencing life with real people.
Mae lands her dream job at the Circle. Starts working in the Customer Experience team and gradually become famous. Interesting and uncomfortable read about sharing everything in life with the world.
As the story unfolds, we get know Mae, her friends and parents, and we see how Mae's relationships with the people around her gradually shift. The life she living is perfect with everything she could possibly want, and the comforts come with subtle changes and limitations in options.
Frustrating, alarming, and completely compelling. I grew to hate the protagonist fairly quickly, which at times made it tough to read, but overall I definitely appreciate the lesson Eggers was attempting to give.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It wasn’t a bad book, however I kind of felt nothing towards the characters. I think it is a very important read right now when talking about politics and privacy. And it is eerily somewhat true to real life. It really opens your eyes and makes you realize how this could hypothetically happen.
Mae was unlikeable. I cannot believe it ended the way it did, but it kind of made sense, and really highlighted how concerning the idea is. She is stupid and selfish. She didn’t truly bother me until the last 20% as some characters in books bother me throughout the book and make me viscerally angry. I had a mild annoyance for her until the end when it picked up.
The book felt slow paced, I felt like nothing happened in the first one hundred pages, but I still read on. Overall it was okay, what pushed me through was the political talk, and how real it felt.
Overall I think it is an important read for society, politics, and shows how important privacy is. It was creeping me out.
Mae was unlikeable. I cannot believe it ended the way it did, but it kind of made sense, and really highlighted how concerning the idea is. She is stupid and selfish. She didn’t truly bother me until the last 20% as some characters in books bother me throughout the book and make me viscerally angry. I had a mild annoyance for her until the end when it picked up.
The book felt slow paced, I felt like nothing happened in the first one hundred pages, but I still read on. Overall it was okay, what pushed me through was the political talk, and how real it felt.
Overall I think it is an important read for society, politics, and shows how important privacy is. It was creeping me out.
Highly recommend this as an audio book. Given our current climate, it was downright spooky.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I go back and forth about Dave Eggers (Hated "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", but loved "Zeitoun"). While I don't really connect with his writing style, I thought the story was timely and once I started questioning his character's behavior, I could see where he was going. Very disturbing and easy to see something like this happening in the near future. Worth reading.
This is by far my least favorite book ever written. I hated it so so much.
Let's talk about why:
MAE: how did she manage to graduate high school?! Let alone go to college. Mae is an idiot, worse than that, a compliant idiot.
The second somebody tells Mae her opinion or actions are wrong she immediately changes them without a second thought. She's basically a dog, doing whatever her owners tell her to do and waiting for the praise for being a good little girl.
The Circle Itself: Seriously?!?!? This book would've made more sense if it was placed way in the future or in its own world. Here we have things like privacy laws, free will, common sense. Nobody would EVER consent to their every move being watched, not because they're hiding things, but because we all want and deserve, some level of privacy. It's creepy and weird.
Speaking of, you ever try and put a chip in my child and I would probably kill you. Not even joking, that's some twisted shit and not okay.
And EVERY POLITICIAN who rejected the circle is a serious criminal?! Nobody found anything shady about that and started investigating?! Nobody??????????
THE KAYAK INCIDENT: if my employer ever tried to lecture me like that about some mistake I made NOT ON COMPANY TIME, I would tell them off. It was none of their business and to use that to manipulate her into wearing a camera 24/7 is disgusting.
FRANCIS: Francis is a disgusting creep. None of Mae's 2 million stalkers felt a need to point this out?! His invasion of her privacy, filming her without her knowledge, HIS ASKING HER TO RATE HIM AFTER CUMMING IN HER NEAR PROXIMITY. He's probably the first guy I would murder if someone tried to chip my kid to be honest.
KALDEN: Kalden's real identity is easy to figure out, but Mae is an idiot so doesn't get it. In fact she knows NOTHING about this guy but chooses to fuck him in a bathroom. Classy.
And then there's the actual writing of the book. Do we need TWO PAGES devoted to saying what numbers/statistics appear on Mae's watch? No we do not. Do we need passages like this:
Mae zinged Bobby and bobby replied with a link. Mae read the link and smiles at it and links it to Susie and all her followers. Susie smiled at it and sent Mae a message about her cousin. Mae replied and looked for her cousin. Susie's cousin loved this particular topic and asked Mae to read her stuff about it. When Mae didn't reply immediately Susie's cousin assumed Mae was the Devil and Mae apologized, dropped everything, and read the article. She smiled at Susie's cousin and praised her all over the web for everyone to see.
SERIOUSLY
Passages like that are basically every fifth page and it gets tiresome and difficult. There's only so much repetition I can handle and this book far exceeded that threshold.
The only good things about this book were Mercer, who was way too good for the idiotic Mae, and end of book Annie.
How anyone can even consider comparing this to real life baffles me. I really hoped it would get better, but the end derailed me from ever reading anything by Dave Eggers again. What Mae did to both Mercer and Ty is despicable. Without spoilers, I truly believe Mae would be in jail for one of these events if this book was supposed to take place in the real world.
My only hope is there is a sequel where Ty leads an uprising and corrects all the stupid nonsense that is this book.
Let's talk about why:
MAE: how did she manage to graduate high school?! Let alone go to college. Mae is an idiot, worse than that, a compliant idiot.
The second somebody tells Mae her opinion or actions are wrong she immediately changes them without a second thought. She's basically a dog, doing whatever her owners tell her to do and waiting for the praise for being a good little girl.
The Circle Itself: Seriously?!?!? This book would've made more sense if it was placed way in the future or in its own world. Here we have things like privacy laws, free will, common sense. Nobody would EVER consent to their every move being watched, not because they're hiding things, but because we all want and deserve, some level of privacy. It's creepy and weird.
Speaking of, you ever try and put a chip in my child and I would probably kill you. Not even joking, that's some twisted shit and not okay.
And EVERY POLITICIAN who rejected the circle is a serious criminal?! Nobody found anything shady about that and started investigating?! Nobody??????????
THE KAYAK INCIDENT: if my employer ever tried to lecture me like that about some mistake I made NOT ON COMPANY TIME, I would tell them off. It was none of their business and to use that to manipulate her into wearing a camera 24/7 is disgusting.
FRANCIS: Francis is a disgusting creep. None of Mae's 2 million stalkers felt a need to point this out?! His invasion of her privacy, filming her without her knowledge, HIS ASKING HER TO RATE HIM AFTER CUMMING IN HER NEAR PROXIMITY. He's probably the first guy I would murder if someone tried to chip my kid to be honest.
KALDEN: Kalden's real identity is easy to figure out, but Mae is an idiot so doesn't get it. In fact she knows NOTHING about this guy but chooses to fuck him in a bathroom. Classy.
And then there's the actual writing of the book. Do we need TWO PAGES devoted to saying what numbers/statistics appear on Mae's watch? No we do not. Do we need passages like this:
Mae zinged Bobby and bobby replied with a link. Mae read the link and smiles at it and links it to Susie and all her followers. Susie smiled at it and sent Mae a message about her cousin. Mae replied and looked for her cousin. Susie's cousin loved this particular topic and asked Mae to read her stuff about it. When Mae didn't reply immediately Susie's cousin assumed Mae was the Devil and Mae apologized, dropped everything, and read the article. She smiled at Susie's cousin and praised her all over the web for everyone to see.
SERIOUSLY
Passages like that are basically every fifth page and it gets tiresome and difficult. There's only so much repetition I can handle and this book far exceeded that threshold.
The only good things about this book were Mercer, who was way too good for the idiotic Mae, and end of book Annie.
How anyone can even consider comparing this to real life baffles me. I really hoped it would get better, but the end derailed me from ever reading anything by Dave Eggers again. What Mae did to both Mercer and Ty is despicable. Without spoilers, I truly believe Mae would be in jail for one of these events if this book was supposed to take place in the real world.
My only hope is there is a sequel where Ty leads an uprising and corrects all the stupid nonsense that is this book.
Ayn Rand meets Silicon Valley. How Google/Amazon/Facebook take over the world (and do evil). Characters are 2D, plot is skimpy. Overhyped.
You have to read this knowing that Eggars is pushing the bounds of plausibility to make a point. Perhaps I am naive but I don't think the power achieved by the Circle by the end of the book could be achieved quite a fast as told in the book. I do think he makes excellent points about privacy, the "need" for external validation and information control.