A coworker recommended The Circle back in the fall. It’s a cautionary tale about a tech company called The Circle that is run by a trio called “The Wise Men” and is growing exponentially, adding newer and more far-reaching applications every week to its near-monopoly on internet searching and commerce. It’s a company wealthy beyond imagining, with thousands of smart, idealistic young people like Mae Holland working there.
Mae is soon consumed with her work, caught up in and even authoring some of its slogans, including “secrets are lies,””sharing is caring,” and “privacy is theft.” To atone for a transgression — not telling her many social circle contacts inside and outside the company that she kayaks, not borrowing a kayak after hours from a rental company without paying, and not sharing any of her experience online — she agrees to become transparent, wearing a camera and being connected to her followers and watchers all the time, except when she’s in the bathroom or in bed.
Slowly the Circle nears “Completion” when the whole world will be a part of it, and no one anywhere will go untracked, unwatched, unknown. Secrets will be a thing of the past. The Circlers believe this will be utopia, with no crime and no unknowns, but there are a few people who seem to think things may be getting out of hand. Mae proposes a new tool that will make democracy “mandatory” and gets increasingly hounded by a mysterious man named Kalden who is trying to warn her off these plans. The higher she rises in the Circle the less contact she has with her family and her friend Annie, who helped her get hired. None of this seems to bother her, as she becomes thoroughly indoctrinated in the Circle’s ways.
Mae is an impossible character to like, and the whole book made me squeamish, but it still seemed like a good read. The story seems improbable, but so did a Trump presidency not long ago. It’s hard to imagine brilliant young people at a technology company making decisions that could impact the world — but then again, look at the way Facebook and Twitter let fake news and trolls proliferate, sure that these things would not matter. The Circle would be good to read with a book group, and to discuss the questions the book raises about the overreach of technology in our lives, and about privacy, freedom, transparency, safety, and the fine line between utopianism and totalitarianism.
bookconscious 
I read and enjoyed this book last year – scary stuff, but quite believable when you look at some of the behaviour going on presently …
Sadly, you’re right! When I told my colleague I’d read it she said “oh, maybe not the best time to be reading hat one!”