In an attempt to have a more timely quality to our blog, Meg and I thought it would make sense for me to review Dave Eggers’ The Circle (2013) since the film adaptation is currently playing in theatres. As of writing this I have not seen the movie yet… it honestly looks horrendous. Meg laughed at me because we are working on a list of worst book-to-movie-adaptations and I already have it written down as one of my choices. The trailer alone makes me cringe, I don’t think I even finished watching.
Probably the best summary of this movie was from the Atlantic:
As a satire, The Circle might have been worth a few giggles, but as a deadly serious drama, it’s laughable in an entirely different way.”
The casting also just seems very off to me, but enough about the movie since this is a book blog after all…
This was the first book I read of Eggers’ after reading his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) (probably his most famous publication). I really, really love his memoir, I think it stands far above anything else he has written, but I don’t want to say too much more because I still have a few fiction books of his on my shelf to go through (Heroes of the Frontier (2016) looks especially amazing). That being said, The Circle was an enjoyable read, but it’s not something I’ll go back to anytime soon. While reading the book you are often moving through it quickly because you want to know what’s going to happen next / what’s going on within this company.



But obviously, the more you read the more disturbed you become about the total lack of privacy. This comes to the forefront when Mae agrees to take part in a “Facebook-live type” program. She wears something pinned to her shirt that is live-streaming her every move, with live comments from her viewers flowing in. I would immediately draw the line at this as a favourite PRIVATE pastime of mine is eating two chocolate bars in bed with just the glow up my laptop screen for lighting.
My boyfriend’s friend wrote this great post about the movie for the website The Outline, and he uses this example of a recent class-action lawsuit that I think really demonstrates how you start to feel while reading the book. I remember seeing this story on the business wire at work and thinking AT FIRST “just like all the data Facebook has on me, this doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

One thing I really liked about the book was that it isn’t your average technology-as-villain plotline where we see the main character suddenly realize everyone around her is a mindless, “like”-driven zombie, and that she needs to “get out.” Mae completely falls for what The Circle is selling. And I think most of us say we aren’t obsessed with social media, but I think it would be hard to find someone who truly doesn’t feel good when they check their phone and see one of their social media posts has a few new likes. And this is how Mae is essentially “conditioned” into participating in anything The Circle suggests of her. This is a line I often think about that applies to me all of the time:

This book is easy to ready and is definitely a bit of a “page turner.” It isn’t self-serious and that’s why I think it works so well. Unfortunately I don't know if I'll be able to say the same about the movie.
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