This review originally appeared on the book review blog: justonemorepaige.wordpress.com.

Although I've had a few of Eggers' books on my TBR list for some time now, this is the first one I've actually gotten to. With the movie coming out, or having just come out, with huge names like Tom Hanks and Emma Watson (my all around idol!) there's been a lot of press around this novel. I actually had two different book clubs choose this read simultaneously, which might sound boring, but there is so much to debate and dissect in these pages that getting that much input on it is definitely worth it.

Well that was something. It was creepy and thought-provoking in equal, yet particularly hard to quantify, measure. I felt unsettled the entire time I was reading, kind of restless, like I couldn't put the book down and needed to read faster and faster to see where it was going, but at the same time, super hesitant to actually get there. It's a strange feeling that I haven't often experienced before and I love when books can do that.

This was an exercise in the small connections and leaps of logic that each make sense individually, but down the line in the bigger picture, you realize have no idea how things ended up that way and how they could have gotten so convoluted. I found myself, often, agreeing with many of the little arguments and points made by various characters, agreeing with how the technological advances they were dreaming up could be useful and beneficial to society....and then, like 4 logic steps later, I'd catch myself and be like "wait, this is craziness!" Such an intriguing writing style: a slow reeling in alternated with sudden snaps back to reality/rational thought.

More than anything, I thought, this was a philosophical argument disguised as a novel: the ideals of full transparency (in literally everything) and the right of each person to any knowledge they want versus the arguments of privacy and the personal choice to share information or not. On both sides, numerous safety issues are addressed and explored. The slow brainwashing of Mae (I literally cannot think of any other way to describe it), the pressure from the Circle to be absolutely and overwhelming connected to everything at all times, is the one thing that I felt completely opposed to from the start and throughout. What started as something wonderful and positive for Mae (a great opportunity, wonderful job benefits, the ability to help her family, etc.) uses those positives to take so much advantage of her. She slowly lost all her friends and family, and the meaningful and developed connections she had with them, in favor of the, cliched, "quantity over quality." It was terrifying and depressing to watch her transformation and loss throughout the story. And I was truly exasperated with her lack of self awareness about the entire situation, her loss of ability to tell what were her own thoughts and what was "planted" by The Circle, and the hypocrisy of some of her actions (despite her public pro-transparency statements and assurances, she still had the need for privacy in certain situations...and found a way to get it without recognizing the incongruity there). However, in line with her development and the pace and direction of the story, I'd like to say that the ending was perfect. Exactly what it needed to be. And there were so many ways that could have gone wrong and I was, as I approached the end, super nervous about it. But Eggers nailed it.

There was definitely some condemnation of the overuse of social media (that I think, in some cases, is currently already an issue): measuring yourself by that superficial interaction, lack of engagement in real life, gossip/hearsay being raised to the level of actual fact/news. But there was also not space for real dissent. Mae's old friend, Mercer, fills that role partially, but to an unrelatable extreme. And to an extent, her parents also partially fill that spot. But there is literally almost no one else that is willing to, or able to, legitimately stand up to the growing power of The Circle and it's quest for transparency. And as the book goes on, it gets worse: look at the politicians who refuse transparency, look at Annie. On the other hand even now, the way things are in our real world, there is a strong voice of dissent against over-engagement in social media replacing actual life. In a slightly ironic twist, the easy access to people everywhere that social media provides actually enables those who feel that way to find each other, connect, and have their own voice. So I truly don't see, and hope I'm right, that we will ever get to the point, in the real world, that things got to in The Circle.

Overall, I believe this is an important read. Even though it could really be classified as SciFi more than anything else, the philosophy around the moral concerns of the digital age that are addressed are widely applicable for the world today. And it is done in a way that I have not seen anywhere else. The questions of where we draw our lines and how to address the rights of humans in this digital age are explored fully and in a way that we can understand on a personal level that fully engages the reader in the discussions and outcomes.