Actual Rating: 4.50
Yes, there were some cliché dystopian themes in here, and yes, I too found the main character to be quite flat...
HOWEVER:
I liked this book because of it's ability to keep me thinking. There were several passages in "The Circle" that made me stop reading and ponder my own views on a particular subject or argument, even ones I've already thought about.
This is a 500 page book, and the fact that I finished it in under 3 days really said something to me about how much I was really interested in what would happen.
Also, between watching "Black Mirror" and reading this book, I'm 99% ready to delete every form of social media! :O ( )

It's ironic that I learned about this book from a person I know only through social media and that I'm sharing my thoughts about it on social media with people I mostly only know electronically.

The Circle is about perfect connectivity and transparency in life via the cloud. It's sounds like Utopia.....or does it?

Fast paced, easy to read, and a wee bit frightening. I'm glad technology has not quite reached this level and when it does I wonder if this will make me a wee bit more wary. ( )

I have a friend who recently became a supplier to Google, one of the three or four most successful businesses in the young century. One of the mantras of the young behemoth is to do good by its users. Try and square that philosophy with the rigours of a public company and you get a sense of what Dave Eggers' The Circle is all about.

Mae Holland, the novel's heroine, is faced with a life working as a techno serf in some backwater, or becoming a cog in one of the most aggressive and sophisticated information firms ever invented. The trade off is that she must give up her privacy and ultimately her independence to rise in the company. Mae doesn't even seem to care that much about her pay scale as much as the number of "likes" she gets from her social media viewers.

Mae is convinced (brainwashed?) that the company is ultimately created to do good and in the process reform government and society. How does it accomplish this: complete transparency, crowd sourcing, audio and video surveillance.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe Google or even the NSA is out to get me. I sure got a shock last summer, however, when I purchased an ice cream in Portland, Oregon, paid with it by VISA, and immediately got an email confirmation of the purchase without having given the store my email address. Somebody somewhere figured it was ok to send my email address to VISA USA. I don't remember sending it to them. It must have been in one of the user agreements I signed somewhere along the way.

Which brings me to my point: the world is changing in ways we can't control or plan for. I regularly advise my customers to take advantage of the revolution posed by cloud computing, but I do so so,what in ignorance of what actually happens up there.

Dave Eggers thinks we should care about it. Care about the use and likelihood of abuse of big data. He has a point.

And that is what is so disturbing about his book.

It is dramatic, well written, and persuasive in the tradition of 1984, Brave New World, and Animal Farm.

I certainly recommend it. ( )

I don't know what to say about this book. It is a chilling portrayal of a dystopian NOW, where Google/Facebook/your favorite social media company here, takes over. In a big way. Which leads to a tiresome not-really-a-parody that is still TOO MUCH altogether. Sort of glad I read it; wouldn't have wanted to give it much more time. ( )

I read this book in about a day and a half and it's certainly thought provoking. However, the main character is so shallow and pliable that it annoyed me to no end. She is supposed to be in her 20s but she struck me as an impulsive teenager.

Some other posters have described Eggers' style as "facile" and that's a great description. It's a weird mesh of a YA style but with some decidedly non YA (sexual) content.

I do not miss the irony that I am posting my longest review to date regarding this particular novel. ( )