The Circle

Since I live and breathe digital marketing and new tech, I was excited to add The Circle

to my reading list. I thought maybe I’d get my fix for working at a large tech company without actually moving to Silicon Valley.

When you pick up the book, you’ll be surprised it’s a whopping 491 pages long. The pages are incredibly thin.

Our main character, Mae Holland, turns out to be someone I could easily relate to. She grew up in a small town, wanted something bigger, her college roommate gets her a job at the world’s biggest tech company (think Google) and she lives her life in a big city.

Things start out really well for Mae. She’s in the customer service department, working hard to reach an average score of 100/100 with each interaction.

Throughout the story we see her move up the ladder and soon she’s hanging out with the Wise Men, the guys that started and run this company.

Eventually shit hits the fan because the company decides to take it a little too far with the technology.

I’ll call this a mediocre story. The character development was lacking a bit, but I did find it to be an eye-opener. At the rate we’re moving, we can’t be far away from this kind of technology.

People believe they are creating something that will solve all the world’s problems, yet it just ends up creating bigger ones because someone will always find a way to abuse it.

Despite the negative reviews, I’m looking forward to watching the movie with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson (not literally with them, but how cool would that be!?) and seeing how the two — book and movie — stack up to each other.

UPDATE: The movie played out a little differently. There were parts that they skipped (and I wish they hadn’t), but I feel way better about how the movie ended vs. the book.