Anxiety. That’s the biggest thing that comes to mind about my experience with this book – anxiety. Mae’s new Circle world was full of online activity and stimuli, and I just couldn’t handle it. She was overloaded with newsfeeds, message threads, online events and conversations – and she handled it perfectly fine. But man, did it ever stress me out! I can barely keep up with Instagram and Facebook.

There were no individual chapters and the ending was unsettling – I had a lot of questions after I finished it. The characters felt a bit two dimensional, but I kind of think that was the point. This book is a fable about the dangers of overdoing it online and the limits of privacy – the characters were there just to help tell that fable. As for the movie – I’m not sure if I want to see it. I’d rather not feel that anxious over a piece of fiction again.