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A review by finallyfinnian
The Circle by Dave Eggers
3.0
Really, I'd call this a two and a half - but three feels more right than two stars because I did enjoy the book enough to read the whole thing.
I'm not going to outline the plot because you can figure out everything you need to know by reading the back blurb. The story itself is interesting and the descriptions of the Circle's company culture is compelling. (Hint: It's an introvert's nightmare. Tell me how they have all of these nerd programmers and inventors and still have outside social-time as a measure of job performance?)
Mae is a kind of flat character - she has so little character arc that it's hard to care about her at all. The book is written in an omniscient voice, so while the narrator tells us what Mae feels sometimes, we don't really feel any of it.
There's very little tension - no real surprises.
And yet--there is something compelling about the story. Maybe because I personally wrestle with my need to be connected and my desire for privacy-I waver between wanting transparency from our government, but not wanting all of my business broadcast to the world. The book doesn't dive deeply into these ethical questions. It can't because it isn't that deep. But it does serve as kind of a low-key, low-effort way to gloss through the issues and since the book itself requires so little thought, it does give the reader space to think about the potential without having to deal with anything pesky like expending brain energy trying to figure out where the book is going.
I'm not going to outline the plot because you can figure out everything you need to know by reading the back blurb. The story itself is interesting and the descriptions of the Circle's company culture is compelling. (Hint: It's an introvert's nightmare. Tell me how they have all of these nerd programmers and inventors and still have outside social-time as a measure of job performance?)
Mae is a kind of flat character - she has so little character arc that it's hard to care about her at all. The book is written in an omniscient voice, so while the narrator tells us what Mae feels sometimes, we don't really feel any of it.
There's very little tension - no real surprises.
And yet--there is something compelling about the story. Maybe because I personally wrestle with my need to be connected and my desire for privacy-I waver between wanting transparency from our government, but not wanting all of my business broadcast to the world. The book doesn't dive deeply into these ethical questions. It can't because it isn't that deep. But it does serve as kind of a low-key, low-effort way to gloss through the issues and since the book itself requires so little thought, it does give the reader space to think about the potential without having to deal with anything pesky like expending brain energy trying to figure out where the book is going.