The Circle by Dave Eggers

I was very excited when The Circle was published.  I have long admired Dave Eggers.  He's just so talented and PROLIFIC!! He is always churning out something: a novel, an essay or short story, fiction and non-fiction; he is constantly promoting new and talented writers; he is a force to be reckoned with in the literary world.

I dove into The Circle and was immediately lead into a world where "privacy is theft" and "All that happens must be known."  The protagonist, Mae, finds herself in a transparent world where everything is known, shared, written about, and commented on. She works at The Circle and The Circle becomes her life.

Everything can seem to mean something in an Eggers novel: the jacket design, the names of the characters, the fact that all the buildings on the Circle campus are glass and a major focal point is an incredibly humongous aquarium...for a fascinating analysis of these aspects of the novel, read Margaret Atwood's review in The New York Review of Books (Nov., 2013)

Line to remember:

Your tools have elevated gossip, hearsay and conjecture to the level of valid, mainstream communication...and it's fucking dorky.

Speaking of dorky, my personal rating: ***