A bestselling dystopian novel that tackles surveillance, privacy and the frightening intrusions of technology in our lives—a “compulsively readable parable for the 21st century” (Vanity Fair). When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, … sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.
As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO.
Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.
What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.
more
I love relevant dystopian novels, and The Circle is up there among the best of them.
Somewhere between Amazon and Facebook, The Circle is a social media platform that offers users around the world countless convenient and helpful services — many of which are seemingly great ideas (i.e. a way to find missing children to reduce numbers of assault, rape, and kidnapping worldwide). Like Amazon’s Alexa, the services offered by The Circle start to get just a little creepy, and soon protagonist Mae Holland finds herself in the public eye via wearable camera literally 24/7.
I really appreciate the pushback offered to the book’s main ideas in the form of Mae’s parents and her high school boyfriend, Mercer, who believe the complete lack of privacy wished for by The Circle can only lead to the social media platform holding a complete monopoly over everything from buying goods to voting in presidential elections, at the expense of its users’ health and happiness.
The ending remains somewhat open to interpretation (and is very thought-provoking), and I’d pick up a sequel to The Circle immediately if Eggers ever wrote one.
Very good and thought provoking. It can lead to many thoughts that can, especially if these events/technologies happen/are used like they are in this book one day, take you out of your comfort zone.
This is one of the most interesting novels I’ve ever read. I found myself saying out loud: “In the book I’m reading..” A must read for anyone in tune with the digital age. I give “The Circle” 4 (.5) stars instead of five only because at times the story telling seemed slow, repetitive. While to some extent the style contributed to the story, at other times it was laborious.
I read this book because I saw the trailer for the movie. The book is awesome. The characters believable and the plot is terrifying in way that 1984 was in the 60’s and 70’s. Even at the end, you are wondering why the main character made the decisions she did and if the world is a better place for her choices or not. That is the fun of reading, the ability to look into yourself and either cringe or cheer as the story progresses.
only partially recommend this book. Very informative and incredibly laid out as a Facebook like scenario but it is LONG, too long
It was a very entertaining book. It certainly was relatable in our current tech world. I think there were some gaps in some of the characters’ storylines, perhaps more precisely, there were some very obvious questions that were not addressed.
this book isn’t The Exorcist scary, it’s 1984 scary…which is just as (if not more) terrifying. I loved it!!
An amusing satire of a big-tech Google/Facebook type company. Not realistic, but they got some of the minor details right, or at least as of the 2013 publication date of this book.
It was readily apparent where the plot was going, but I didn’t expect it to keep going and going and going like it did. The book is a metaphor for concepts that have significant initial value but which become absolutely evil if allowed to intrude into areas they were not designed to work. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons have an unsettling relationship. This book suggests other ideas may be equally unsettling.
I bought this book because of the author. It was so well written that it was hard to put it down. The characters and the company reminded of corporations today and their “good intentions. I highly recommend it.
The Circle is a chilling tale about where our society may be headed. I found myself nodding at the power of social media/corporations to do both great and horrible things. Mae’s gradual brainwashing and descent into obsession was painful to follow but I found it realistic and understandable.
I loved it. You have the main character the whole time, but you love it. Great book. Great for a book club.
Dystopian in a big way. Alarming and all too believable.
This book was scary but not in a horror story way. It was scary to think that this scenario could become reality at some point in the near future!!
If you like 1984 and conspiracy theories you’ll love “The Circle”. It’s like a modern day prequel to 1984.
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.
First off, the book was much better than the (weak) movie! This book took identity theft and power of technology to a new/interesting level.
Though some parts of the plot seemed contrived to me, I felt the book was well worth my time and definitely the contemplation it caused!
This book is the “1984” for today’s social media generation.
Vindication for my discomfort with technology. The world needs more Luddites and this is our manifesto book.
Reminiscent of the power of social media, but run amuck. The Circle is a powerful social media concern looking to control everything and everybody. It was unsettling in that this premise could indeed come true in the not too distant future with social media knowing all things and being in charge of all things, including the government. I was rooting for the heroine but she disappointed me in the end. Good read.