Long have I prowled around this book and now that I have finally heard it, it left me speechless and in horror and I can honestly say: "What an awesome ride!"
Some call it a dystopian manifest depicting our future, and in times where every meal, every new hairdo, make-up or dog shit is shared via Instagram, every mundane crap thought is tweeted and usually private fights are fought out on facebook, I am afraid this might just be the case.
When Mae is able to land a job with health care at the Circle, thanks to her former room mate Annie, she is amazed of the sprawling campus. The Circle combines facebook, instagram, twitter, google and apple and is lead by three charismatic leaders, who on a daily basis encourage their employees to share what they do.
Everything Mae does is monitored and she is heavily encouraged to participate via her online profile in the manifold social activities the Circle provides to his employees. Her day consists not only of work, but of completing surveys, tweeting about the cafeteria food, throwing out ratings, smiles, and frowns, likes and comments on literally everything. This would have been the point where I would have gone ape shit, at the latest, but Mae enjoys all of this. She thinks nothing by the company monitoring her health via a tracker she has to swallow and a bracelet that measures everything from her heartbeat to her sleep. Even when she also makes her parents pay for the health care the Circle provides to them, by putting up cameras in every room, Mae is still convinces of the Circles divine goodness. At this point I really wanted to slap that dumb B***!
During her time at the Circle she meets a mysterious boy nobody seems to know and she cannot find in the system, still, she has sex with him, every time he shows up, only to disappear again. Meanwhile tension also arises between her and her friend Annie.
Things at the Circle also start to spin out of control, because their aim is to monitor everybody all the time, so there are no secrets anymore and to finally take over world domination.
Will Mae be able to get her shit together and start to fight this demonic corporation? I really hoped so, but Mae was the most disappointing, dumb, moronic, superficial, fatuous heroine I have ever encountered! This is why this book left me so incredibly mad and I probably won't be able to watch the movie or I will detest Emma Watson forever.
The reading voice on this audio book was unobtrusive and pleasant and the story was clearly in the foreground.
I heartily recommend this book as a scary dystopian eye-opener, but don't tell me, I didn't warn you about the strong feelings of hate it inspired in me.