Welcome to Litsy!

I absolutely loved this! It might have upped the plot complexity to have made Mae more conflicted about what was happening, but I feel like her “sheeple”-like quality represents society as a whole. The book is so spot-on with the approach to social media. Especially terrifying is the thought process behind their ever-more controlling surveillance tactics. I can see people today agreeing with them. Highly recommended for dystopian fans!

Pretty scary at how spot on Eggers was with the direction in which social media is going. There were some eye-rolling moments which weakened the book‘s effect on me, so it‘s just a soft pick. My last completion in a somewhat dismal reading year. 😞
#1001books

We meet Mae on her first day in her new job at the Circle. We sit with her on training sessions, as her desk acquires more screens, as her responsibilities increase.

We watch as Mae integrates with her new company culture, we watch as her new job becomes a lifestyle and the destruction that causes her, her family and the world.

This is a compelling read but it's also horrifying and uncomfortable.

For once i have seen the movie before reading the book, let's see how I like it...

I really enjoyed this book. It really made me think a lot about the world we live in today and what the world could become. This book was likely mind blowing 10 years ago when it was released so it‘s kind of crazy to think about how when you read it today, that the idea of this kind of “transparent” world is really not too far off from what our world is like what we live in today. There is so many pros and cons to the world created by “the circle”

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs
Thanks for the tag @jenniferw88 💕

1) The Circle got under my skin

2) I only give 5 stars to books that have something really special about them. They don't have to be perfect, just absorbing or emotional. 1 star is for total crap, 2 stars bad to meh, 3 stars fairly good, 4 stars really good. I'm not awfully consistent though!

3) Not usually, but I read in cafés where music isn't optional! 😅

I hate being disappointed by a book that was a best seller turned movie!

Wow. This book scared the crap out of me.

The Circle makes for eerie, compulsive reading. It's a chilling and claustrophobic look at power in the digital age. The plot spirals and spirals, indoctrinating & evolving, with no chapters & no brakes.

As with all good dystopian fiction, The Circle makes an unlikely situation seem horrifyingly plausible, at least within the confines of the world on the page.

This book really got under my skin.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#pop22 - A social horror
@BarbaraBB @squirrelbrain @jenniferw88 @Megabooks @alisiakae @Laughterhp @Cortg @Cinfhen @KarenUK

So far this is proving a compulsive read. Sometimes you don't realise how frightening certain concepts are until you see them fictionalised. Reading this book is showing me just how essential privacy and boundaries are to me.

Creepy 😶

I love this paragraph.

I don't agree that it's evidence of a divine hand in things, but I do understand the sentiment. When you meet someone so completely different from anyone you've ever known before and you're completely fascinated by them (and sometimes a little bit in love with them 😅).

#campus #savvysettings
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

@TheAromaofBooks #bookspinbingo

Here's my March list.

It looks suspiciously like my Feb list.

And more than a little similar to my Jan list.

In my defence Rhythm of War was about the equivalent of 3-4 regular sized books and February is a short month 😉 I am falling behind with my #pop22 challenge though so hopefully I'll be speedier this month 🤞🤞

Too disturbing for me. I wish I had bailed at 50 pgs.

@NataliePatalie

Not sure I can keep going with this. Even if it is for my movie/bookclub. I got to pg 100. Unlikeable main character, too wordy, too many people, sooo busy busy. The theme of Big Brother is very clear.

I HAVE done some Xmas shopping today (promise!)... don't want to think about how much I've spent, but I think I've sorted my Mum and got a few bits and bobs for my sisters.

Now recuperating in Waterstones with a *modest* stack of purchases... on the plus side, I have my social-horror pick for #pop22 and something festive to read while awaiting my friend for sushi 🍣🍤

How meta to be ranking/posting a review of this book. I‘ve always loved Eggers and after hearing about his new one, felt I needed to read its prequel first. I hate to say this one was a slog for me, in the same way I found 1984 and Brave New World emotionally unengaging. Keen observations, but quite honestly the protagonist never grabbed me.

Too scary because I think that technology is taking over. Cultish and real life scary, I liked this read. The ending surprised me but I give the author kudos for ending it in that way…..😳🤫. Mae, you have been brain washed! Someone‘s always listening and watching.

Just finished this Audiobook - and have to say: it‘s creepy because it‘s so plausible. I can totally see everything that happend in the book also happening in the real world - total transparency due to digital innovations. It was interesting to see the story from the point of view of a vehement advocate of all the innovations. 4/5⭐️ and the wish that people in the real world would never let such surveillance happen🙈

I‘m pretty satisfied with today‘s painting session☺️ @Bookzombie

I‘ve also made good progress on the Circle- so far it‘s quite scary how okay everyone is with the total monotoring and surveillance🙈

Continuing my sunday with Audio-Painting my first christmas cards☺️ i‘m so curious already about this (audio) book! Took me way to long to get to it😅

Although a little repetitive and somewhat preachy, the book held my attention. It was easy to recognize today's bigtech companies in Circle, and the novel was a cautionary tale about where their well-intentioned projects can lead. With the cameras and the loss of privacy the book certainly had a 1984ish vibe.
All in all, it was an intriguing read but it could have been way more powerful if the author had put more thought into the characters.

1. The Circle by Dave Eggers. The ending was infuriating! After that I sailed it across the room and was ccmpletely disgusted with her weakness..argghh!

2. I would love to reread any of Jo Nesbo's books, while staying in luxury hotel in Oslo. It's so beautiful there! And visit all the beautiful parks.

3. I love chocolate and Carmel the same 😁

#WonderousWednesday @Eggs

Clear themes relating back to classics like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. The biggest theme is clearly the struggle for big tech to find balance between the common good and the personal privacy of the public. Privacy is theft and full transparency is to be totally vulnerable. #maleauthor #malewriter #thecircle #daveeggers #booktomovie #alfredaknopf

#BoundTogetherJune @OriginalCyn620 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
#SocialMedia

I immediately thought of this book. The internet gone way wrong and the power large companies weld over people.

#boundtogetherjune #socialmedia This book has been on my shelf for ages and I always pass it by. Has anyone read it? Thoughts?

“Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft. Secrets are lies.” Just finished “The Circle,” a “1984” and “Black Mirror” mash-up. #mmdchallenge A book outside my (genre) comfort zone.

"You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you‘ve done nothing good for yourself. That‘s the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished."

Near-future distopia. Loved it

A good portion of Eggers' message has already been disseminated via episodes of Black Mirror, but The Circle remains a worthwhile, & timely book. Mae Holland lands a much coveted job at the titular social media corporation, a hodgepodge of real life companies, & is promptly overwhelmed by the glib Newspeak of corporate culture. It is this aspect & the psyche of someone deeply mired in social media, shot through with black humor, that makes it work

"This was a new skill she'd acquired, the ability to look, to the outside world, utterly serene and even cheerful, while, in her skull, all was chaos."

Reviews of The Circle seem pretty mixed. I have to say, I loved it.

I listened on audio, and the pace of it had me on the edge of my seat a good deal of the time.

It‘s a terrifying commentary on social media taking over our lives, and beyond that, taking control of the world really.

Watching the MC, Mae, be drawn deeper and deeper into her online life, I continually thought about brainwashing, and it made me happy that I‘ve gotten off FB!

I have less than an hour left of The Circle, and less than half of The Wishing Spell.

One of my bookclubs chose Disappearing Earth for next year- but not until July! I just can‘t wait that long! Starting later tonight probably. Recommended by @Hooked_on_books and @Mitch 🥰

And I‘m pretty sure @AmyG recommended City of Girls for me. 🥰

No better time to revive my dormant Litsy page than while honeymooning with @LiteraryinLititz at a 3-day ‘reading retreat‘ on the eastern coast of England! If you‘re skeptical of modern social media and behavioral tracking (as we both are), this book provides a kind of 1984-lite experience, though I was hoping for a slightly more persuasive argument in favor of privacy and digital autonomy to contrast with the blind zealotry of the Circle.

Mae might have been a 24-year old college graduate hired into the California tech-savvy, The Circle, but she was written like a middle-schooler dropped mid-term into a new school and desperate to fit in. This book contained sooo much social commentary. With all that and my I-don‘t-give-a-shit-about-Mae, the MC, I had no perspective in which to take away whatever it was this book wanted me to receive.

...And sharks eat anything!

Well, well, well, what do we have here.... Let me check this out. #LitsyLove #taggedbookisbookIamreading

This book will make you rethink your use of social media. The irony of me posting this comment on Litsy is not lost on me 😀
Very clever, disturbing and thought provoking read. Don‘t bother watching the movie on Netflix. It is completely different from the book and not very good either.

Only 100 pages in and I‘m anticipating sinister goings on ahead. Very cleverly written so far.

I listened to the audio, and had no trouble following without losing interest. I really liked this. It was hard to fathom how she could get more and more sucked in to that life and not realize the implications. I guess I felt like she had been brainwashed, like a cult. In fact, pretty much all of them had “drunk the Kool-Aid”! It was an interesting tale of taking social media way too far

In this frightening dystopian novel, the main character, Mae, has a close friend, Mercer, who does not agree with the Circle‘s methods. He attempts to go off the grid. #wanderingjune #letsgetlost

A fun one - nearly a blackout! I would have to check on that last one... I may have read all the books from one author but that would take me some time to verify! #bookwormbingo @EclecticReaders

Tagged book fits both the "book bought at airport" and "popular book I didn't enjoy" categories ?

Saw this pop up a ton so I got it on audiobook from the library. It went quickly! Really enjoyed the book, not sure I‘d enjoy is the right word, but definitely powerful and eye opening.

Walking into the Apple Store when you‘re 75% down with the book is downright disturbing!!

Going to use this for the #Booked2019 #booktomovie prompt

This book may seem exaggerated in its dystopian vision but is it really so? I look at our world and encounter uncomfortable similarities. #Booked2019 #SocialMediaFocus @Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft

I'm reading this for the Social Media Focus prompt at #Booked2019 #SocialMediaFocus @Cinfhen @BarbaraTheBibliophage @4thhouseontheleft

I listened to this on audio in my car, and I was so invested that I wished that I had copies in multiple formats! Sharing is caring is one of the mottos of the technology company known as The Circle. And we certainly do already live in a world of likes, smiles and comments. What if one company had the power to take all the data for the country and use it to achieve their goals? Did not see the movie. Finished4/30. #booked2019 #socialmediafocus

Currently reading my choice for #booked2019 #socialmediafocus. I am enthralled!

I read this for the around the year challenge in 52 books for prompt #36 a book featured on the NPR best books of the year. It had a good premise but wasn‘t executed all that well. You could see where society could get like this though with social@media. It did keep me turning the pages. I‘m still going to put it as a pick. #aty2019 #aroundtheyearin52books

@Clwojick #bookishquestions
Thanks for the tags @Samplergal @Eggs 😘

1. Literary Fiction
2. Memoirs- so many sound interesting, I just often don‘t love the writing, so fall back into my Lit Fic comfort zone!
3. Horror 😳 & Sci-Fi 🛸
4. Historical Fiction. I love a good costume drama.🎥
5. ‘The Girl with all the Gifts‘ & ‘Dark Matter‘
6. I‘m picky about what I read so I can‘t think of anything I LOATHE, but I read ‘The Circle‘ for a book club..👎

I have avoided this one after seeing some bad reviews... but I begrudgingly put it on my tbr when it was added to the #1001books list last year, and I needed a #socialmediafocus book for #Booked2019, so here we are.

I really enjoyed this audiobook! The MC is unlikable in her selfish naivety and it‘s sort of preachy, but it‘s also scary how easily we could get here as a society. Definitely in the vein of 1984 Fahrenheit 451. 😱

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not a fan.

The story: Mae is hired to work at The Circle, and its everything she ever wanted - it‘s a dream job.

Socializing is one thing, but just how far into personal lives should one really go?

My take: Poor writing style. Breaking the book into three segments did NOT work for me. Way too hard to read without having a defined breaking point.

Why the Pan: Mae‘s downward spiral was way too fast and unrealistic. She became so unlikable.