The Circle, Dave Eggers

I'm onto the 2017 Reading Challenge. I didn't get all the books in 2016, but that's ok. But I figured I'd see what I could do in 2017. This fits the category "A book that is being made into a movie this year"

So, this is an adult novel. A LOT of conversational swearing. I didn't like it in the beginning. It was a little much for me, but luckily that wore off after awhile. There are also a few explicit scenes that I skipped over.

Now that that's out of the way....Mae Holland is at a dead end job in her hometown after college when she finally contacts a former college roommate, Annie, to see if maybe there are any openings at the company she works for: The Circle. The Circle is a leading tech/social media company, reminiscent of Google. The campus has thousands of employees, careful to have representation of many ethnicities and interests. Mae lands a job in Customer Experience (it used to be Customer Service, but it improves morale when it's an experience). It's interesting because they ask for feedback surveys on how they did and if it's less than 100, they are require to send a follow up asking how they could improve (or if not, modify the number to reflect their true feelings of the score). Striving for perfection!

The campus offers everything and it's complimentary too. Meals, parties, entertainment, sports, a gym, daycare, doggy daycare, even hotel-like rooms if you need to stay late and don't want to commute home. They have the best healthcare-totally paid for-as well. They provide their employees with EVERYTHING.

This company started to help make the internet a safer place. Anonymity is done away with. We have no more problems with identity theft, so instead of Facebook, we now have TrueYou. All your interactions are connected to you and can be traced back to you. One password for everything. Sounds pretty nice. The internet is a more civil place because people can't be trolls or have no consequence for their actions like we sometimes find with cyber bullying now. Also sounds pretty nice.

This company has created a tiny camera, called SeeChange and it can be placed anywhere, has a batter that would last several years and can give you a detailed live stream feed. "Imagine the human rights implications" if we could see for REAL what is happening anywhere? Imagine what people wouldn't do if they knew they were being watched and knew they'd be caught. You could eliminate all crime!

The story was drawn out a bit, but it was written to prove a point. A point that we cannot let something like this happen. There are 3 main principles this company touts: "Secrets are lies", "Sharing is caring" and "Privacy is Theft". Those, when you read them here, seem obviously crazy. But in the context of this book, you can be sucked into actually agreeing with those statements. That it's selfish to want privacy when giving it up will obviously create a better and safer world for everyone else. People start pledging to be "transparent" which means they wear one of those cameras all day and live stream their whole lives. At first, it seems great-get the political leaders to all be transparent so we REALLY know what's going on. But then, those who want to fight for privacy are villainized and OBVIOUSLY trying to hide someone. So then, ANYONE who would like the right to privacy must have a reason to want to hide and everyone is immediately suspicious of them. Anyone who speaks out against the Circle is shortly thereafter found to have horrible things in their private dealings and discredited. The Circle is pure and honest, they are transparent (except where sensitive intellectual property issues are concerned) but NO ONE suspects that MAYBE they could be dishonest under the guise of intellectual property rights.

Honestly, this book ANNOYED ME. Because it seemed SO over the top and SO redundant, but I do appreciate how blatant the author made his point.

Oh, the character of Francis (thank goodness they wrote him out of the movie script entirely), he is the most pitiful man on the planet. He can't even have a normal physical relationship and expects his partner to rate him as a 100 every time or his feelings would get hurt. There's another guy who is nearly in tears because Mae, in her first week, gets invited to some event he's hosting and she doesn't RSVP and doesn't go. They have to talk it out and Mae has to apologize for the distress she inadvertently caused. It reminds me of how quickly I could feel hurt by seeing friends post pictures of themselves at things they didn't invite me to. I've talked with teenagers and know that that kind of thing bothers them. And people getting upset when people don't like or comment on their posts. This society is EXTREME with that. But I can see parts of happening right now.

I think I'll give this a solid 3 stars. Even though it was annoying and over the top, it DOES make me think about things a little differently. And it's validated my previous thinking that I had before reading it. Around a year or so ago, whenever I felt the urge to post something on Facebook, I started thinking "Do people REALLY want to know this?" "Do people really CARE about this?" "Do I NEED people to know about this?" "What am I trying to GAIN by posting this out there?" "Does this have a PURPOSE?" And most of the time, I'd decide that it really didn't need to be out there at all. It's not a secret, sharing isn't always caring, and privacy is a human right, NOT theft.

It also reminds us that MANY MANY evil things in our world today have been sold under the sheeps clothing of philanthropy. For the good of mankind. That we must make sacrifices for the individual in order to protect and make a better place. Francis had a bad close experience with kidnapping. So he started up this project so that no kid could ever be kidnapped again. Doesn't that sound wonderful? What's the catch? A chip that is implanted into a child's BONE. No mention of if it ever gets removed. It probably won't. Or can't be. So if you can be tracked every second as a child, what are the implications of full society being completely trackable? There are so many things that SEEM good. No more infidelity, secret deals, criminals hiding, no more runaways, and with cameras everywhere, no break-ins, no child abuse, or abuse of any kind.....but these are all things that would be FORCED, and it puts someone else in control. If it's not government, it's a money making for profit company. "We're watching you"

The movie stars Tom Hanks and Emma Watson, and if it's not rated R, my husband and I will definitely go see it. it's set to be released in April.

Red Rising, Pierce Brown

So this book satisfied the 2016 Reading Challenge of reading a book recommended by someone I had just met. So a new friend had been telling me about this book that her son had to read in high school. It does have quite a bit of swearing and a LOT of mature themes and is rather crude in many places. I don't know how I'd feel about a teenager reading it. Especially MY child. But I figure that if I just read all the required stuff along side them as it comes, we can discuss things and it will be easier.

Anyhow, this is a future/sci-fi story of people living on Mars. In fact, most of outerspace has been colonized and turned into livable space. Such things have caused some mutations or forced genetic modifications, I'm not really clear on that. This book reminded me of parts of "The Testing" and "Uglies" and "The Selection"

There is a caste system, shown by this diagram I found below:

There are more colors, Silvers, Bronze, and Gold, Gold's being the best, of course. And there are also High Reds and Low Reds. The main character, Darrow, is a low red. However, certain events lead him to be in a position (not sought out by himself) to potentially lead a rebellion against the Golds and make a better life for everyone. But you find out that this society doesn't just mess with it's lower citizens, it totally messes with and even culls the Golds. In things that they believe are necessary. But they are also completely corrupted amongst themselves. It's disgusting really.

This book definitely kept my attention and was a page turner. Sometimes a little hard to follow with the slang words that are exclusive to this fictional society. Twists and turns I didn't see coming. But like I said, proceed with caution. 3.5 stars.

A Fatal Grace, Louise Penny

I listened to this on audio awhile back and just realized I never blogged it. This is the second Inspector Gamache book. To be honest, I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did the first one. This one was far more predictable than the first and had more swearing. Or maybe listening to it made it more obvious since I tend to skip over those types of things in my reading.

Of course, there were some episodes of Castle that were more predictable or less enjoyable, and I like the character of the Inspector enough to get around to the other books in the series here and there in between other things. 2.5 stars for me.

No as much action on here because....

I am working on helping my sister in law as a beta reader for a novel she's written. Well, it will be a series of novels, actually. I tried to be a beta reader before, but my life got crazy and I was not able to be a good beta. But I really want to help my SIL, so I am really focusing on reading her manuscript through carefully. Because of this, I don't want to confuse my head with too many storylines at once (like I am known to do...) and I'm not devouring it as fast as I would normally read a book because I want to be careful to pick up on any discrepancies or things that she would or wouldn't want to make it into a final draft. So I'm being careful and taking my time. So in the meantime, I'm really only listening to some audio books.

I've also gotten REALLY busy with all the musical endeavors and jobs in my life-Christmas is the "musical madness month"! I'll be getting back to reading more regularly soon, though!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick

I listened to this book on audio, which was interesting because I know this book has a lot of pictures in it and that the pictures are part of the story. So now I'm really interested to look at a physical copy of the book to see how (and what parts) were narrated from the pictures, because I didn't feel like I missed out anything in the story line. The sound effects of this audio were REALLY good. When he's running, you can hear him running, you hear the tick of the clocks, stuff like that.

It had some parts remenicient of Oliver Twist (though not nearly so dark). Overall it was enjoyable and adventurous. Although, being a book geared towards middle readers, it didn't delve very deep into why certain characters made certain choices. Perhaps it's to allow for some discussion for that age group to decide for themselves what would motivate a person to do certain things.

I also liked the connection between imagination of authors and filmmakers with real invention. I think most things of technology were first contrived in the imagination of an author!

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads.

Piccadilly Jim, PG Wodehouse

This book was chosen for my book clubs meeting in Sept. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised! It was published in 1917 and I was preparing myself for a certain style of writing. However, what I found was a quite modern approach with TONS of dialog and it made me laugh SO much. The descriptions are delightful, the predicament in which all the characters find themselves in simultaneously are riotous. I kept thinking "I can't believe this is happening!" "I can't believe noone has figured this out yet!"And I laughed a LOT.

I'd never read anything by PG Wodehouse before, but I will probably look at some of his other works now. This was available for free on Kindle, but one of my friends purchased his entire works for something like $1.99 on Kindle.

I looks like there were a couple film adaptations, one in 1936 and one in 2005. I think I might try to get my hands on the 1936 version.

I haven't decided on a star rating for this...I'm leaning towards 4.5 stars, but for Goodreads sake, I think I'm going to tip up to 5 because I thoroughly enjoyed it-even though it was a little slow at first-and the ending was just so classic!

Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple

This one fit into the 2016 Reading Challenge as a "satire". It's a modern satire of a privileged life.

I listened to this on audio and it was narrated by the actress who plays Luke's sister Liz in Gilmore Girls, so I totally pictured her face the whole time. I thought she did a fabulous job!

This book had a little more swearing than I am normally comfortable with. I don't think I would have noticed it as much if I had read it instead of listened.

Anyhow, many entries are from different points of view. Some chapters are emails from one character to another, some are phone calls, letters, etc. I loved having all these different perspectives of the story. There were a LOT of laugh out loud moments. Such as when Audrey is hosting a brunch for perspective "Mercedes" parents to enroll their soon to be kindergarteners in their particular private K-8 prep school, there is so much rain-because this takes place in Seattle- (and other events that I won't spoil for you) that cause a landslide to crash through her house, breaking windows and everything right in the middle of the current kindergarten class playing a recital on Orff instruments and they are all freaking out. One of the moms who had volunteered to be there for some reason, who also happened to be a psychiatrist, describes the mayhem in an email to the parents of the student body to describe the events and offer assistance if any child shows signs of PTSD, says "If there's one thing kindergarteners know how to do very well, it's to line up!" So many instances like that where I could totally say the next few words exactly as written without even knowing for sure they were written. It's SO true! My youngest is a kinder this year, and boy to those kids know how to do lines! :-) The other thing that I thought was true to form was how much parents were willing to ignore in their children's behavior and blame everyone else and fail to see that their child is the only one responsible for their own poor choices. Or even acknowledge poor choices are being made in the first place. I don't think this kind of attitudes are limited to the affluent, either. I think it's quite rampant on a whole.

Anyhow, Bernadette is a curious person and very misunderstood. She's dealing with a lot, and I don't want to give any away. You do get to have a lot of backstory on her. I loved all the information that explains how she ended up making the choices she did. Her only daughter, Bee, is so like I was- a flute player who was also academic and didn't really care too much about the crowd. She was quite level headed.

This book deals with depression, anxiety, keeping up with the Jones's, workplace relationships, there is some infidelity, adolescent drug use, and lots of things that made me shake my head at, like "That's what people who have a ton of money do with their money? Wow."

One character shows a drastic transformation towards the end, and while it's a very nice thought and absolutely essential to the success of the plot line, seemed abrupt enough that I didn't quite buy it.

Overall, I give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.