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The Circle Dave Eggers 8601411195594 Books

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The Circle Dave Eggers 8601411195594 Books

I have almost finished reading this book and I have to say I will be glad to donate it to a local charity because that is what I do with books that I don't like. I bought the book because I was intrigued with the subject matter. The Electronic Age we live in seems to make people think they need to share every single moment of their lives. I am not a fan of social media and refuse to subscribe to any of them much to the chagrin of my grandchildren. I keep telling them if they want to communicate with me, to just pick up the phone.

But I have watched them post on their pages and found it mind boggling that they thought that someone would be interested in knowing where they are, what they are having for dinner or what movie they are going to see. I got uncomfortable thinking about what else they post on their pages that are personal in nature.

But while this book makes its point, I grew tired of Mae constantly questioning herself about whether or not she was a good and unselfish person. If you have to keep asking the question to yourself or because of a comment made by someone else, then you probably are not the person you aspire to be. And now as I am close to the conclusion of the book (I did start skimming about 2/3 of the way through the book), we find out that Mae really doesn't care who she steps on while she makes their lives transparent to a public while they would rather remain anonymous. So I guess she isn't a good and unselfish person.

I found this book to be "preachy" and ponderous. Maybe if the book had been shorter, I would have enjoyed it more. It did make me glad that I have stuck to my guns and stayed away from social media. In all actuality this book just demonstrates the concerns some of us have about our privacy and also the fact that while, in my case, I continue to read a book I am so bored with.


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The Circle Dave Eggers 8601411195594 Books Reviews

Mae Holland is thrilled when she gets hired at the world famous company The Circle. The Circle is the leader of technological advances and has basically monopolized the use of the internet and social media. In addition, they strive to streamline daily activities, so they found a way to integrate all social media accounts, payment options, purchase history, etc to create a single online identity.

In this new age of transparency, Mae is excited to see what else The Circle comes up with…until she has a strange interaction with a coworker who talks of the problems the lack of privacy can cause. The Circle is a book full of technological innovations, suspense, and moral questions, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

I really had a hard time putting The Circle down. I was immediately engaged with the story and completely fascinated by the inventions the company had created – many of which would be convenient to have today.

Part of what I loved about the book is how much it made me question the stance on privacy and anonymity. There were so many inventions and programs that The Circle wanted to implement that I could see as being both helpful but also a total removal of privacy, and I often questioned if the pros outweighed the cons.

I had a really hard time rating the book because while I loved the writing and learning more about the goals of The Circle including the inventions they wanted to make, I kept expecting something crazy to happen – some big event, similar to the way the story went with Divergent. That was not the case with The Circle, and I went back and forth on whether or not I felt it was missing something. Ultimately, I landed at 4.5 stars, and rounded up to 5 stars, specifically because I couldn’t put the book down and when I wasn’t reading it, I was definitely thinking about it.

I’ve read other reviews that said that they hated the ending. I actually liked it. By the end of the book, I had no doubts as to how it would end, and I liked that. I think the ending was absolutely what would happen in real life, regardless of whether or not I liked it, so I appreciated that it wasn’t necessarily a “happily ever after” ending with all loose ends tied up.

I liked Mae as the main character as much as I wanted to shake her sometimes! She definitely made some bad choices and occasionally struggled with her self worth. She tied a lot of what she felt about herself into what others thought of her. As much as it’s hard to read that, Mae is 24 and I don’t know many 24 year olds who don’t care at all what their peers think of them – I know I didn’t when I was 24. Hell, as much as I hate to admit it, I still struggle with not caring with what people thought of me, so honestly, that felt realistic to me.

All in all, I really enjoyed the book, and it made me think a lot about the world we live in today. Many of The Circle’s innovations felt like things I could actually see happening in real life, which made the book all the more creepy. This is definitely one I’d recommend for fans of the dystopian genre and anyone interested in the extremes the “selfie culture” could take. While this wasn’t a traditional “hard core” dystopian where the world is completely different than the one we live in, I think it still falls in this category. When all is said and done, this is still a book that’s on my mind as I fall asleep at night.
*Warning Spoilers*

“The Circle” makes some important points about timely issues such as the end of privacy (already upon us), totalitarianism/monopolies, the power of “groupthink” and delusion, and the weaknesses of governments that are incestuously linked to private corporations. However, I found myself skimming through parts where it got bogged down. On one hand, Eggers’ attention to detail is impressive and extremely conscientious. For instance, he details the Circle’s elaborate system of success metrics (a combination of performance and social media rankings) that eerily parallels today’s times. But he also spent a lot of time describing the mechanics of Mae’s job as a customer service rep, and I’m not sure there was a point to having to digest all those specifics. I think a talented editor could have honed this manuscript down to 300 pages instead of 500, while still making the main points.

I also found it odd that Mae (the protagonist) did not undergo a major character transformation, since most novels follow that formula. Mae is sort of a “flat character” with little emotional depth. I kept hoping Mae would see the error of the Circle’s philosophy and her acceptance of it. But maybe the point is that good people can find themselves embroiled in ultimately bad things due to a lack of awareness and insight. Mae is, after all, only in her 20s. Perhaps she just lacks the wisdom and empathy that come with age and experience. Yet Mae’s character flaws – megalomania and self-delusion – seem deeply ingrained in her psyche (e.g., her refusal to admit to herself how her behavior resulted in the death of someone close to her).

As Mae and the other Circlers approach “completion,” ironically, the people in Mae’s inner circle – her parents, her best friend, her ex-boyfriend – begin dropping out of her life. It serves as a cautionary tale about how obsession and delusion can lead to the destruction of what’s most important to us.
I have almost finished reading this book and I have to say I will be glad to donate it to a local charity because that is what I do with books that I don't like. I bought the book because I was intrigued with the subject matter. The Electronic Age we live in seems to make people think they need to share every single moment of their lives. I am not a fan of social media and refuse to subscribe to any of them much to the chagrin of my grandchildren. I keep telling them if they want to communicate with me, to just pick up the phone.

But I have watched them post on their pages and found it mind boggling that they thought that someone would be interested in knowing where they are, what they are having for dinner or what movie they are going to see. I got uncomfortable thinking about what else they post on their pages that are personal in nature.

But while this book makes its point, I grew tired of Mae constantly questioning herself about whether or not she was a good and unselfish person. If you have to keep asking the question to yourself or because of a comment made by someone else, then you probably are not the person you aspire to be. And now as I am close to the conclusion of the book (I did start skimming about 2/3 of the way through the book), we find out that Mae really doesn't care who she steps on while she makes their lives transparent to a public while they would rather remain anonymous. So I guess she isn't a good and unselfish person.

I found this book to be "preachy" and ponderous. Maybe if the book had been shorter, I would have enjoyed it more. It did make me glad that I have stuck to my guns and stayed away from social media. In all actuality this book just demonstrates the concerns some of us have about our privacy and also the fact that while, in my case, I continue to read a book I am so bored with.