Scan barcode
A review by leitnerkev
The Every by Dave Eggers
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This book's predecessor, The Circle, was absolutely chilling and one of the most terrifying reads of my life. Egger's prescience on eroding privacy rights and his vision of a slide into groupthink mob rule absolutely left me panting with fear. The Every taps into that same vision, elevating the threats of a monoculture to the next level. His creativity in harnessing realistic scenarios of techno surveillance and public shaming as devastating levers of control are without peer in modern literature. However, The Every's continuation of the themes explored so well in The Circle does leave us feeling like we are hearing beats from the same drum. Little progress is made by Eggers in advancing either the story or the societal warnings he's so clearly invested in making, as The Every is pretty much the same book as The Circle. Engaging, terrifying, important, yes, but a different book? Decidedly not. That said we are definitely rooting for our hero, Delaney, though her tactics in attempting to take down The Every could be 100% the wrong approach. Personal note: rooting for protagonists with wrong-headed ideas is kinda my bailiwick.
A few other issues I had: 1) For a bit in the middle, Egger's continued drumbeat of warnings against techno surveillance, of public shaming, of eradicating privacy began to run amok and the author started railing about lots of things. Mainly anything defined by society in the story as "progress". There is a debacle of a field trip and Eggers chooses to use that story to rail against environmentalism and human cost on the planet. His burning lens of castigation against legitimate society concerns is valid and necessary but in this he goes a bit far afield and ends up sounding very GET-OFF-MY-LAWN.
Finally, 2) the ending was problematic. Not in what actually happens (I actually like those types of endings) but in what it reveals about a significant character. The revelations are completely out of left field and not supported by anything at all leading up to the final chapter. Feels cheap and only done so that the author could write the ending they were aiming for.
A few other issues I had: 1) For a bit in the middle, Egger's continued drumbeat of warnings against techno surveillance, of public shaming, of eradicating privacy began to run amok and the author started railing about lots of things. Mainly anything defined by society in the story as "progress". There is a debacle of a field trip and Eggers chooses to use that story to rail against environmentalism and human cost on the planet. His burning lens of castigation against legitimate society concerns is valid and necessary but in this he goes a bit far afield and ends up sounding very GET-OFF-MY-LAWN.
Finally, 2) the ending was problematic. Not in what actually happens (I actually like those types of endings) but in what it reveals about a significant character. The revelations are completely out of left field and not supported by anything at all leading up to the final chapter. Feels cheap and only done so that the author could write the ending they were aiming for.