Friday, March 3, 2017

The Circle by Dave Eggers


18302455
1 Star

“ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN.”
Here’s a dramatic reenactment of me while reading this book:



In case you can’t tell what that little child of the corn is saying, it’s something along the lines of “WTF?!?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! I’VE BEEN READING THIS CRAP FOR THREE DAYS AND I’M ONLY AT 74%?!?!?!?!?!” The Circle has been making its way on and off my to-read list ever since it was released. Most recently, a combination of Snotchocheez’s review, the never ending “Read to Reel” library challenge, and a chance encounter where I discovered who would be playing the main character . . . .



Managed to finally wear me down and this went back on the stack. I should have trusted my gut instinct and shown no mercy because that’s exactly what this book ended up doing to me.

How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways. If you hate all the same things I do . . . .



But first, let me take a minute and give you a super brief synopsis. The story here is about Mae, a recent college graduate in debt up to her eyeballs who lands an entry level position at the company of her dreams – The Circle. Hired as a “CE” representative (which is basically the poor schmuck who answers everyone’s bitching and moaning via the intertubes) Mae quickly becomes quite the golden child and works her way up the corporate ladder PartiRank.

Alright, now let’s spew some hate. (For those of you who think I function with limited capacity, you’re right. But also please note I am not missing the irony of me bitching about this millennial’s obsession with all things social media whilst posting to a social media site.)

Mae will go down in history as one of my most hated characters of all time. If you follow me at all, you are well aware that I adore the “character you love to hate.” Unfortunately for Mae, she’s not one of those. There was zero love lost between the two of us. It was pure hate due to a combination of her being completely vapid and stupid as shit to boot. For lack of a better term, Mae goes to work for a straight up cult. Although she does well at her assigned job, she quickly discovers “good” employees will pretty much dedicate their entire lives to The Circle. With the convenience on clothing, grocery, etc. stores right on campus and plenty of clubs and after-hours social activities, there’s almost no need to leave. Right then is where this should happen . . .



But of course it doesn’t because there would be no story if it did. Instead Mae takes several big gulps of The Circle Kool-Aid and proceeds to get horny with real winners like a dude who has a premature ejaculation problems and another whose last name she can’t even manage to catch, but who she does manage to get busy in a Burger King bathroom with . . .



Just in case Mae being an effing idiot wasn’t enough, readers get the added bonus of her attempt to be the Number 1 Reviewer On Goodreads break into the Top 2000 most popular users on the intertubes via her constant “zinging” of all the things and expertise at distributing smiles, frowns and mehs. Much like other websites which shall remain nameless, I could almost smell Mae’s desperation through the screen.

To be fair, there were a handful of items that were either entertaining or rang fairly true in such a supposedly far-fetched tale. The shout outs to “Going Clear” gave me a chuckle and I’m sure pleased a couple of other gentlemen almost as much . . .



The creepiness which is providing a website a sample of your DNA to track your heritage was just as effed up as the commercials that interrupt my monthly Housewhores of Beverly Hills binge-watches . . . .



And the idea of transparency within our government could have possibly eliminated a lot of conspiracy theories and chatter about a certain someone . . . .



That might have saved ‘Murica from the complete and total nightmare which we are currently facing . . . .



I debated all last night about awarding this 2 Stars rather than one, but at the end of the day I spent three days of my life on this turd that I will never get back and to sum things up with my trademark blend of class, if this book was a dude I’d punch it right in the balls so 1 Star is all it gets.

Book number maybe I should have quit while I was ahead of my local library’s Winter Reading Challenge.

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