20. The Circle

I deserved this book.

After sleepwalking through a lackluster 18th book of the year and struggling through a terrible 19th, I wanted a book that would rip. This was most certainly the one.

Maybe I'm the last person on earth to know it, but Dave Eggers' The Circle is showing already on the big screen with a guy named Tom Hanks in the lead role. Maybe you've heard of him; he was amazing as skeptical neighbor Ray in the 1989 classic movie "The Burbs." Either way. I didn't know it was being made into a movie. Once I heard, I promised myself I wouldn't watch the trailer until I was done. Now, you have to promise not to watch the trailer until you're done reading this post, okay? I'll post it at the end for you. Don't cheat.

The story is a cautionary tale of a world towards which we are currently careening. Its backdrop (and, a character of sorts) is the Utopian California campus of a tech company that's swallowing every other startup in its wake. The Circle, as its called, is a Google-Apple-Facebook combo, started and operated by three guys referred to as The Three Wisemen. A young woman named Mae lucks into a job there and you watch her life transform. She quickly drinks The Circle's kool-aid, believing at once that she never wants to work anywhere else. And, why would she? She's in a brain trust punctuated by parties every night, constant warmth and enlightenment, free food and places to stay - and, free health care for her aging parents. She buys into the mantra "All that happens must be known", believing that privacy is equal to lying. She quickly becomes a cog in the machine of surveillance around the world.

(Can you see why now I tore through 309 pages in the first 24 hours after checking it out from the library?)

The Circle's founders create a way of connecting every account and every device, all linked back to a person's true identity. You can hear Zuckerberg chomping at the bit already. They believe that this brings authenticity to the world and to everyone's online experience. They also foster the notion that engagement, likes and online comments are what all of humanity should strive for. Mae quickly becomes enraptured with the constant connections and constant feedback among "Circlers" that is required of her in her new position. She quickly finds more satisfaction through those online relationships then she does with the real humans standing right in front of her.

While Mae doesn't seem to notice a descent into madness, the reader quickly will. You feel a sense of foreboding as she visits the on-campus health clinic for the first of her required bi-weekly checkups; she drinks a smoothie at the doctor's request and learns that she's swallowed the sensor connected to a health-tracking bracelet on her wrist. You see the problem with that, of course. The Circle will have you believe, however, that the invasion of privacy is worth every bit of privacy violation that comes with it.

As Mae moves higher up in The Circle, she takes on a public role and you watch the "real world" fall away. You see her heading straight for disaster; like the people in her life, you want to stop her. But, the instant online gratification is just too much and she willingly walks over to the other side.

The book is fantastically written, the setting and characters are easy to imagine. What's most compelling, though, is how easy it is to see all of it coming true. You find yourself asking, when does it stop? When have we give up too much? When, like Mae, we are constantly connected to each other, constantly alert, when do we actually have time to breathe?

I'm not going to lie and say I don't see how it all starts. As of this moment, I have tweeted more than 43,000 times. I spend my life with my phone attached to my hand. I track how many people watch my Instagram stories and I get workout ideas from Khloe Kardashian's Snapchat (Bosu ball booty, here I come!) I work in a newsroom where, all day long, a giant monitor tracks the social media accounts of every journalist in the market and ranks us, based on performance and engagement. Which is why I cringed watching Mae fall down the rabbit hole of artificial adulation. How short is the walk from smiling over a Facebook "like" to agreeing to nonstop surveillance so we can feel loved by the world?

I'd venture the walk is further than this book, but not by much.

The book was fast-moving and utterly compelling. I suggest you check out the movie, too, though I'm seeing it's not getting great reviews.

Judge for yourself on that. As promised, here's that guy Bling Ring in The Circle.