The Circle
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, 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.
BUY THE BOOK
These clubs recently read this book...
Community Reviews
497 pages
What’s it about?
Mae is a few years out of college and hates her boring job with a utility company. She finally asks her best friend Annie to help her get on with the big tech firm that Annie had started with right after they graduated. With Annie's help and support Mae finds herself in a new fabulous world where all her needs are met and she is truly a part of a community. But when does "community" go too far?
What did it make me think about?
This book was so timely for me! Like many of us I struggle with the role of social media in my life, and although this was a dystopian novel and takes many issues to an extreme, it certainly had a point to make. Keep in mind I am saying this as I prepare to post this review online! At what point do we lose our individuality to the opinions of the masses? Do we really need to share everything? What is the role of privacy in our actual relationships versus our online relationships? How real are all our crafted online identities? So much to think about here!
Should I read it?
I recommend this novel! I had read about this book when it first came out but some of the reviews (and Dave Eggers reputation as a literary heavyweight) made me put it off. At the advice of a friend I picked it up and started it on a plane flight (the easiest way for me to get into a difficult book). What a surprise! This book just flew by for me. Although Mae could have been a stronger more vivid character (most people have a little more backbone-right?) her story still kept my interest. Also the book was dystopian, but it was different in that the world had not been destroyed. I certainly can not think of a book that would create as much conversation as this novel would generate. Book clubs take notice!
Quote-
"The flash opened up into something larger, an even more blasphemous notion that her brain contained too much. That the volume of information, of data, of judgements, of measurements, was too much, and there were too many people, and too many desires of too many people, and too many opinions of too many people, and too much pain from too many people, and all of it constantly collated, collected, added and aggregated, and presented to her as if that all made it tidier and more manageable- it was too much."
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.