Book Review: The Circle by Dave Eggers

It has been while since I have done a book review and there isn't a really good excuse besides that I have just been busy enjoying summer lol.  And been lazy too...but my laziness consists of reading and reading lots of it and that means that I'm really behind on book reviews. So, let's start by reviewing this one:

The Circle by Dave Eggers

From goodreads:
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been give 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 lasts 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 a 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.


Okay, I knew that I wanted to read this book first and for most because there is a movie out based on it and I really like to read the books first before watching the movies.  So, I got the book and started reading and I really don't know what I was expecting but the more I read...the more weird it got.  That's the best I can describe it.  It definitely took me by surprise, that's for sure, it is like nothing I have read before, I will give that.  But, I still can't get how weird it was.

Alright, let's back up a little, Mae is our main character and she isn't happy with her life so she asks her best friend who is a big shot at the Circle to help her get a job there and the friend does just that.  Mae gets a job working at customer service, because everybody should start at the bottom and work their way up, that's the way the Circle works.  Mae isn't really sure how everything works at the Circle either so when she starts to find out she isn't too sure how she feels about it, and when the CEOs come up with their new invention which is more clarity and more transparency, which basically means your life becomes public, Mae is iffy about it but when something happens to her and she ends up wearing one of the cameras and becomes one of the first people to become transparent.  She ends up liking it and loves how everyone knows her and how when she is helping a customer, they end up knowing who she is and they end up having a conversation and become more engaged.  Here life goes from been an unknown person to one of the most popular person.

Her parents are not so onboard with this and she ends up losing someone really close to her...her social life goes sky high but she does lose some close people in the end too.  But, the public loves this kind of thing and we see how this kind of thing can become popular and could work...so for me it's kind of scary.  How about you?

Read it and let me know.  And if you have read it, what do you think?  Will you like the world to be like The Circle?

I ended up giving 3.5 stars.

XOXO,

Nelia