Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - The Circle

I like and loathe this book simultaneously. This book is important to read. It’s important to understand and stress the right to anonymity. „We must all have the right to disappear“ as a certain character (no spoiler) put it in the book. While I believe this book is crucial to read, I still hate it wholeheartedly. Why, you may ask?

I hate nearly all characters, especially the main character, Mae Holland (arrogant, naïve, selfish, indecisive, biased, disgusting, facile, ignorant, … the list goes on)
I hate the weird relationships she has (never call the tip of a penis crown again)
I hate Mae’s non-existing personality (why did they chose poor Emma Watson in the movie???)
I hate that this book has no chapters (Is it meant to be a circle with no ending or beginning?)
I hate that character development is missing (she had so many chances to change her behavior), even though that’s the whole point of the book: she is supposed to represent the people blindly following a monopoly system
I hate the fatphobia and the CONSTANT MANIPULATION, HELP
I hate and love simultaneously that the plot is „just“ about the life at the company and how it takes over the world
I am confused about the tension. I was sometimes bored to death because she was rendering about her „dumb friends (Mercer and Annie) and family (her parents). And in the next moment I wanted to know if we will ever get revenge on this entitled bitch and the inveterate circle

You see, I am enraged about this book and that’s the whole point, I believe. We have to understand that this book, even though it was published 10 years ago, is a mirror to today’s reality (have Google, Facebook and co in mind). Still you could have easily shortened the book by 100/200 pages.

Ps: thank you to my friend Nex for letting me buy this book from him :)

Content Warnings

jayjaystrawbae's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Ok. This book was an interesting read. Reading one page left me wanting to read more. I loved how enjoyable the first section of this book was. I wanted to live in their world , until I didn’t. It delves into a technology dystopian world that is not too far off from our own. Many people have said this trope has been done before, but I cannot speak on that as this is the first dystopian book that I have read. But it was really scary to see the world become progressively more and more totalitarian. And I enjoyed it. You follow the main character Mae through life at the Circle. And i think Eggers did a good job at showing the effects of a lack of privacy.

Now, my one digression is with Mae. She constantly showed the readers how much she lacked a brain. While, I try to understand the fact that the Circle has become her life now, I’m also shocked that even after everyone leaves her, she still believes in the power of the Circle. Even after the death of Mercer, which had been done by her hands. Or the loss of a relationship with her parents. Even her best friend wanting to get out of it all. Who was obviously not mentally ok. Now I’m not sure if Annie tried to kill herself or not, but we can all agree Mae showed a lot of obliviousness to the entire situation.

One thing I can say, Eggers did an amazing job at making me dislike her. Which I don’t think is a negative quality. While annoying, i saw it as her being a product of her environment. She hated her life before the Circle. She hated not being seen and heard, but they gave her the chance to be loved in ways she never got before. Why would she leave that? To go back to an office job she hated. Or parents who don’t want anything to do with her.

The end of the book was a mess. But I’m glad she didn’t choose to be convinced by Kalden so easily. And it really exemplified how far the Circle would go to “know” everything.

“They needed to talk about Annie, the thoughts she was thinking. Why shouldn’t they know them? The world deserved nothing less and would not wait” (Eggers, 491)

Extra: I don’t have a problem with nothing happening with the sex tape between Francis and Mae. I just wish some accountability was taken by Mae. I would’ve loved anything that went against Mae and succeeded. A moment of failure for her. Apart from 368 people not liking her. Eyeroll. Mae was the example of a perfect person who still felt deeply troubled internally, while Annie’s family’s past led to her ultimate collapse. Mae was indeed not 100% transparent. About her feelings. Having to put on a show for the camera daily, when inside she just wanted to crumble away. What would’ve happened if she had done whatever she wanted, instead of whatever everyone else wanted. Ultimately, she became a slave to the Circle, leaving behind anyone and everyone who might actually care about her. And that, I think is her own personal punishment.

If you want to discuss more, dm me at @marklukesandman

Content Warnings

milaju's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

This book‘s characters really seem to have no to little personality whatsoever. The development of the story is boring and slow and there is no real plot twist that influences the story. If it had, I might have preferred the new ending. Mae fatshaming Mercer was on another level and portraits a very intolerant picture to readers.

Content Warnings

pumpkinbisque's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

the speed with which i read this book betrays how i ended up feeling about it. eggers is a very compelling author and while his characters fell flat for me, i sort of devoured this book because i needed to know if my suspicions about how it ended were correct (they were).
i don’t think it’s fair to reduce this book to “ooga booga technology bad” because there were several points in which i found myself thinking “okay, that *could* work, but…” and i got the impression that was the point. i think this book could be more accurately described as a “technology dangerous” book; we are (obviously) not at the level of surveillance and control that is described here, but it’s clear that eggers has feelings about how social media and technology in general are beginning to get a little scary.
i found mae relatable for the first half of the first book. i just graduated from college myself, and i empathized with her desperation to not get stuck in the first job available to her. however, the longer i spent with mae, the more irritating i found her. she resented her ex-boyfriend for acting “morally superior” to her by caring about privacy and helping her parents to the hospital, so she retaliated with some pretty nasty fatphobia whenever she got upset with him. even though she never directly spoke these thoughts to him, it was a little grating to read her calling him “fat” and “an ugly moose” and allowing other people around her to call him “Sasquatch”. i don’t know. that felt like the turning point to me where i really started to hate mae.
as the novel progressed, i predicted how things would have turned out (

i fucking KNEW kalden would be one of the wise men

) and it didn’t feel like it was saying anything meaningful enough for me to look past the predictability. mae got more insufferable, the men around her were still little shits (except mercer who i loved; fat boys deserve so much), and her work environment kept placing more and more onto her while she blamed herself for not being “caught up” with the company.

every time mae got a new screen added to her desk i thought i was going to implode. who DOES that? is she a twitch streamer????? why does she have like 6 by the time she moves departments????

i think eggers has a lot to say about the work/life balance, as i found that aspect most appealing. the campus itself brought to mind companies like google and apple who have these incredible (free) amenities offered to their employees in order to ensure they spend as much time as possible at work and therefore are more likely to work around the clock (or close to it). i enjoyed annie’s character for a while, and i found bailey to be convincingly convicted about his moral ideals. most of the other characters fell super flat for me. the sex scenes were weird and unnecessary, mae’s relationship with her parents felt off, and the kayaking thing was also one of the more compelling aspects of the book which eventually disappeared.

i know this is probably to convey how the circle is eating up all aspects of her life and she has no reason to leave campus and do extracurriculars like she used to, but damn that didn’t make me like it more. i loved reading about mae’s kayaking adventures.

i’m giving it a 2.5 because i read it quickly and mostly had a good time. mr. eggers, please consider writing some creative nonfiction on the topics of work/life balance and of surveillance. i liked what you were saying, i just wished it wasn’t filtered through fiction.

Content Warnings

lisakey's review against another edition

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challenging reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

greatexpectations77's review

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

God, what a trainwreck. This book misses all of the eeriness that would have made it memorable. Also the author used the word "ebullient" like 5 times. And there was intense fatphobia toward the ex-boyfriend. And I hated the main character - I just hated her. She felt very much like the author had never met a human woman before and thinks that all women are fat-shaming brats who are SO ANGRY when their parents have a medical attack and then get better??? because they had to drive to see them?? Damn, am I sorry that I finished this. As a brilliant reviewer of the movie (also apparently terrible) wrote online, the plot is "*clears throat* what if facebook but more." Also def characterized schizophrenia incorrectly. Like, google a thing once, dude. How am I supposed to give a single dried fig about a character who can't respect a single boundary???

Content Warnings

iridaceae's review

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challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

stevienielson's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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