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The Circle #2
The Every
* Duration: 16:10:47 *
From the award-winning, best-selling author of 'The Circle' comes and exciting new follow-up. When the world's largest search engine/social media company, The Circle merges with the planet's dominant e-commerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous - and, oddly enough, most beloved - monopoly ever known: the Every.
Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Kavakian, they look for the company's weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free?
Studded with unforgettable characters and lacerating set-pieces, this companion to 'The Circle' blends absurdity and terror, satire and suspense, while keeping the listener in apprehensive excitement about the fate of the company - and the human animal.
©2021 Dave Eggers (P)2021 Random House Audio
From the award-winning, best-selling author of 'The Circle' comes and exciting new follow-up. When the world's largest search engine/social media company, The Circle merges with the planet's dominant e-commerce site, it creates the richest and most dangerous - and, oddly enough, most beloved - monopoly ever known: the Every.
Delaney Wells is an unlikely new hire. A former forest ranger and unwavering tech skeptic, she charms her way into an entry-level job with one goal in mind: to take down the company from within. With her compatriot, the not-at-all-ambitious Wes Kavakian, they look for the company's weaknesses, hoping to free humanity from all-encompassing surveillance and the emoji-driven infantilization of the species. But does anyone want what Delaney is fighting to save? Does humanity truly want to be free?
Studded with unforgettable characters and lacerating set-pieces, this companion to 'The Circle' blends absurdity and terror, satire and suspense, while keeping the listener in apprehensive excitement about the fate of the company - and the human animal.
©2021 Dave Eggers (P)2021 Random House Audio
16 pages, Audiobook
First published October 5, 2021
1389 people are currently reading
20001 people want to read
About the author
Dave Eggers
338 books9,471 followersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,219 reviews
October 31, 2021
there's something ironic about tracking this book on this particular website 🤷
October 20, 2021
Thank you ahead of time if anyone reads this - or even skims it…
Absolutely not necessary—
I wouldn’t blame anyone for skipping it.
I couldn’t seem to write this review any shorter….working thoughts out here for myself.
“The Circle” merges with the planet’s dominate e-commerce site….and becomes the wealthiest, most dangerous, most addictive mega corporation platform, in the world. The digital monopoly is known as “The Every”.
Following “The Circle”….where the protagonist Mae Holland wanted to be the best employee possible….
“The Every” takes place in the near future—about a decade later…..where protagonist Delaney Wells wants to take down the company from the inside.
“The Every” encompasses all major search, social media and online shopping….[think Facebook plus Google plus Amazon].
Before even reading “The Every”….the novel has an interesting anti-corporate aura about itself….fitting with the fate of capitalism, and freedom….reflecting on some of the questions posed within the novel.
Dave Eggers is not shy to say that he’s a techno-skeptic. He uses an old school flip phone. Products like Ring and Alexa gives him nightmares.
The Hardcopy was released for purchased ‘only’ at independent book stores. There are 32 different book cover jackets.
So much of what all of us purchase is algorithm-driven.
Offering an array of covers gives everyone-from booksellers to the media to readers - a moment to think differently.
Readers interested in the purchasing the ebook or paper book needed to wait six weeks longer than the independent release of the hardcopies.
The Hardcopy won’t ever be sold on Amazon.
“The Every” is both hilarious and horrifying: satire-realism!
When I read “The Circle”, I remember laughing often. The invented terminology was ‘funny’….”Sharing-is-Caring” hypocrisy….[privacy was suddenly under no circumstances honorable]….Transparency was in - generous - kind - and expected at ‘The Circle’
I admit - I read “The Circle”….as fun satire ‘more’ than a profoundly frightening cautionary tale.
I was laughing at the little spy lollipop camers while drooling over the delux-employee-fully stocked apartments on campus (clothes, food, entertainment gifted to ‘The Circle’ employees)..etc.
In “The Every” …..( the apartment: PODS , in ‘The Every’ are a kick too)…
But/and…
…..although still written with plenty of brilliant humorous charm…I found myself contemplating the deeper - seriousness - disturbing—inescapable present and future, ‘more’ this time around.
For one thing— ‘already’ since the publishing “The Circle” - [2013] - I’ve experienced increase technology madness.
Being almost 600 pages….there is a lot one could ‘share’ about its content …. so… in order for this review not to be pages long - nor too short - as to short change it….I’ve been contemplating on how to strike a good balance — not say too much — [not spoil the humor fun] — yet say enough to describe the books flavor. (all flavors actually: lime, cherry, orange, grape, lemon, etc.).
As we follow Delaney Wells….(undercover rebel/technoskeptical), she knew she had to be careful not to get found out.
When her old professor discovered that Delaney was working for the Every…she was flabbergasted and disappointed.
The Professor started sending Delaney letters.
Here are two of the letters: From Professor Agarwal to Delaney
1-
“You thought about things. You seemed in touch with the ways that humanity was being fundamentally changed—how we were moving from idiosyncratic species that coveted our independence to one that wanted, more than anything, to shrink to obey in exchange for free stuff”.
“My heart hurts to picture you there, to think they’ve swallowed another rebel soul”.
“Please leave”.
“Yours, Agarwal
Delaney’s heart felt broken too — she couldn’t risk writing the professor back….respond or confide with her - it would be too risky.
2-
“Dear Delaney,
I don’t expect you to return these letters. But I do hope you’re reading them, even if only to flatter an old lady.
I thought of an analogy the other day and wanted to share with you. The Every offers the world the fruit of a poisoned tree. The early monopolies of the industrial age polluted rivers, lakes, and groundwater because the government was too afraid to regulate them and the money was coming in too quickly.
Tens of thousands of people died.
The Every is the same. There is too much money and too little regulation. Move fast and break things indeed. They have broken three generations now. Your generation entered my classroom presenting every symptom of addiction. No one is sleeping. Half of my students are asleep during class. Each night, in bed, they’re on their phones or EarPods till they pass out. You know this. I wonder if you too are overwhelmed. All of my students are overwhelmed. It is not because the workload has changed, because it has not. The students are now taking a normal college course load, which has been stressful enough for hundreds of years, but they have added thousands messages to read, write, send, process. It is too much”.
“They take drugs to stay awake. They drink and get stoned to get to sleep. All of this will get far, far worse. There is simply too much. A student told me recently she’d written twelve thousand and six messages in the last twenty-four hours. She communicates daily with at least forty-nine people. That is manifestly a form of madness, of monomania. And yet this level of contact and availability is seen as a prerequisite to participating in society”.
“I know your employer does everything it can to counter common sense and has buried many unflattering medical studies, but the inexorable rise in suicide these last twenty years is so
obviously a result of two entwined products of the digital age—the catastrophic health effects of manic (and largely meaningless) mental activity, and the lack of real purpose. No one is resting, and no one is accomplishing anything of real worth. It is, instead, the endless churning of middlebrow nonsense, of smiles, frowns, Popeyes, How U/Me fine, that keeps us from meaningful contemplation, or any hope of a new idea.
Again, please leave
Agarwal “
Delaney’s heart was broken every time - sad that she couldn’t explain why she was working for The Every. It was too big of a risk (in an environment where everything is recorded)
Delaney Wells waited years for the chance to work with ‘The Every’ to enter the system with the intent of destroying it. The interview process at the beginning was a kick.
Dan Faraday was impressed with her resume. He appreciated that she had been a libarts major. They didn’t only hire engineers.
Delaney’s college paper had been the beginning of her on-again, off-again subterfuge.
Even then she knew she’d need to appear to the Every company an ally, a confrere they could welcome inside the gates. Once inside, Delaney planned to examine the machine, test for weaknesses, and blow the place up.
Delaney lived in San Francisco by the Pacific in a tiny Sea Shed.
The Bay Area had become a comically unaffordable place, with landlords throwing ludicrous rent numbers.
Occasionally, old vestiges of the old San Francisco could still be found—odd attic units, covered garages, windswept cottages in the backyards of aging hippies refusing to gouge young tenants.
Delaney had found such a place deep in the Outer Sunset. Near the Doelger Fish Co. and smelling profoundly, the cottage came complete with furniture, a washer-dryer, and a thirty-six-year-old-man named Wes Makazian, and his dog, Hurricane.
The main house ( his two moms), was owned by Wes’s mother and her wife Ursula.
Eventually Wes gets hired at ‘The Every’, too……which was both horrifying and oddly comforting. Delaney felt the risk of her nefarious intention being discovered tenfold with Wes on campus.
“He was at once guileless and forgetful. It seemed quite possible he would mention her subterfuge just as casually as he’d order a poke bowl”
Wes is funny. His sudden fame’ with the company was hilarious.
One day at breakfast he wondered why bananas and tropical fruit was being served when they were out of season. California was three thousand miles from Guatemala.
So….Wes’s puzzlement— was sent to the EVERY ONLINE COMMUNITY.
They debated about what the campus’s recreational and decorative tomato and lemon and limes could be growing on campus.
Studies were planned, nearby farmland was bought and a sign hung over the eatery: WE HAVE NO BANANAS
Everyone was proud……
Any fruit not ground in California was accused stand found guilty:
Adding…to Bananaskam, was pineappleskam, and papayaskam.
I haven’t even touched the surface on both - many hilarious tidbits-
Death app? An app that listens to your conversations? HappyNow apps, and Eggers-creative-terminology throughout - (funny environmental rules of extremes: finger eating foods only - why waste paper - plates - or silverware?)
…..to the real seriousness of mega corporation control —
along with the suspense tale-tension of what happens to Delaney - Wes- and the dozens other characters I haven’t mentioned at the end.
Some crazy things take place in the later part of the book.
But
I was left with sincere questions about my own online participation.
“The Every” continued to control the flow of information for most people.
Think FACEBOOK… or GOODREADS….AMAZON…GOOGLE….don’t they do the same?
Add emails….texting…(online daily lifestyle)…are we exhausted spent online ushers?
If people spend most of their time on these platforms…we might only see what they promote.
How many of us live in a state of ‘aggressive’ truth seeking?
Scary to realize the world is undergoing a movement toward authoritarianism.
And what about ‘our’ basic needs? Hasn’t everybody experience some amount of psychological, or physical health issues? Upsets, depression, loss of purpose, distractions, brain fog, and other negatives associated with our online life?
And how bad is limitless choices killing our world?
So….in closing….because I could share a lot more about this book — which by the way THE HARDCOPY is beautifully designed with an interesting as-can-be- inside-flap write-up.
It felt like it took me forever to finish it. …partly due to it being a heavy-weight physical book and my vision (I guess 69 years with no glasses is coming to an end).
“The Every” — at times — felt as much like a live presentation documentary as much as apocalyptic.
I’m glad I read it — but I’m spent from it.
“The Circle” was more - haha - fun for me —- but this had a few more serious aspects that I can honestly relate to ‘now’ with serious concerns)….
….I did liked enjoy the characters — (but there wasn’t anything super special about any of them overall….which wasn’t the purpose of this book anyway) —
So I have mixed feelings.
I enjoyed most of the storytelling, the technological innovations, and the moral questions were worth contemplating….
And -
I’m a big fan of Dave Eggers. I admire him as a human being - love his humanity —
but this novel took some effort on my part to muddle through at times.
I’m glad I read it -
I’m always happy to read anything Dave Eggers writes. (but I’m spent!):> my brain is tired!
A SINCERE TAKE-A WAY though…..
How might I feel if I removed myself from all social media?
What might the advantages be? What might be the disadvantage?
3.5 rating up …
Absolutely not necessary—
I wouldn’t blame anyone for skipping it.
I couldn’t seem to write this review any shorter….working thoughts out here for myself.
“The Circle” merges with the planet’s dominate e-commerce site….and becomes the wealthiest, most dangerous, most addictive mega corporation platform, in the world. The digital monopoly is known as “The Every”.
Following “The Circle”….where the protagonist Mae Holland wanted to be the best employee possible….
“The Every” takes place in the near future—about a decade later…..where protagonist Delaney Wells wants to take down the company from the inside.
“The Every” encompasses all major search, social media and online shopping….[think Facebook plus Google plus Amazon].
Before even reading “The Every”….the novel has an interesting anti-corporate aura about itself….fitting with the fate of capitalism, and freedom….reflecting on some of the questions posed within the novel.
Dave Eggers is not shy to say that he’s a techno-skeptic. He uses an old school flip phone. Products like Ring and Alexa gives him nightmares.
The Hardcopy was released for purchased ‘only’ at independent book stores. There are 32 different book cover jackets.
So much of what all of us purchase is algorithm-driven.
Offering an array of covers gives everyone-from booksellers to the media to readers - a moment to think differently.
Readers interested in the purchasing the ebook or paper book needed to wait six weeks longer than the independent release of the hardcopies.
The Hardcopy won’t ever be sold on Amazon.
“The Every” is both hilarious and horrifying: satire-realism!
When I read “The Circle”, I remember laughing often. The invented terminology was ‘funny’….”Sharing-is-Caring” hypocrisy….[privacy was suddenly under no circumstances honorable]….Transparency was in - generous - kind - and expected at ‘The Circle’
I admit - I read “The Circle”….as fun satire ‘more’ than a profoundly frightening cautionary tale.
I was laughing at the little spy lollipop camers while drooling over the delux-employee-fully stocked apartments on campus (clothes, food, entertainment gifted to ‘The Circle’ employees)..etc.
In “The Every” …..( the apartment: PODS , in ‘The Every’ are a kick too)…
But/and…
…..although still written with plenty of brilliant humorous charm…I found myself contemplating the deeper - seriousness - disturbing—inescapable present and future, ‘more’ this time around.
For one thing— ‘already’ since the publishing “The Circle” - [2013] - I’ve experienced increase technology madness.
Being almost 600 pages….there is a lot one could ‘share’ about its content …. so… in order for this review not to be pages long - nor too short - as to short change it….I’ve been contemplating on how to strike a good balance — not say too much — [not spoil the humor fun] — yet say enough to describe the books flavor. (all flavors actually: lime, cherry, orange, grape, lemon, etc.).
As we follow Delaney Wells….(undercover rebel/technoskeptical), she knew she had to be careful not to get found out.
When her old professor discovered that Delaney was working for the Every…she was flabbergasted and disappointed.
The Professor started sending Delaney letters.
Here are two of the letters: From Professor Agarwal to Delaney
1-
“You thought about things. You seemed in touch with the ways that humanity was being fundamentally changed—how we were moving from idiosyncratic species that coveted our independence to one that wanted, more than anything, to shrink to obey in exchange for free stuff”.
“My heart hurts to picture you there, to think they’ve swallowed another rebel soul”.
“Please leave”.
“Yours, Agarwal
Delaney’s heart felt broken too — she couldn’t risk writing the professor back….respond or confide with her - it would be too risky.
2-
“Dear Delaney,
I don’t expect you to return these letters. But I do hope you’re reading them, even if only to flatter an old lady.
I thought of an analogy the other day and wanted to share with you. The Every offers the world the fruit of a poisoned tree. The early monopolies of the industrial age polluted rivers, lakes, and groundwater because the government was too afraid to regulate them and the money was coming in too quickly.
Tens of thousands of people died.
The Every is the same. There is too much money and too little regulation. Move fast and break things indeed. They have broken three generations now. Your generation entered my classroom presenting every symptom of addiction. No one is sleeping. Half of my students are asleep during class. Each night, in bed, they’re on their phones or EarPods till they pass out. You know this. I wonder if you too are overwhelmed. All of my students are overwhelmed. It is not because the workload has changed, because it has not. The students are now taking a normal college course load, which has been stressful enough for hundreds of years, but they have added thousands messages to read, write, send, process. It is too much”.
“They take drugs to stay awake. They drink and get stoned to get to sleep. All of this will get far, far worse. There is simply too much. A student told me recently she’d written twelve thousand and six messages in the last twenty-four hours. She communicates daily with at least forty-nine people. That is manifestly a form of madness, of monomania. And yet this level of contact and availability is seen as a prerequisite to participating in society”.
“I know your employer does everything it can to counter common sense and has buried many unflattering medical studies, but the inexorable rise in suicide these last twenty years is so
obviously a result of two entwined products of the digital age—the catastrophic health effects of manic (and largely meaningless) mental activity, and the lack of real purpose. No one is resting, and no one is accomplishing anything of real worth. It is, instead, the endless churning of middlebrow nonsense, of smiles, frowns, Popeyes, How U/Me fine, that keeps us from meaningful contemplation, or any hope of a new idea.
Again, please leave
Agarwal “
Delaney’s heart was broken every time - sad that she couldn’t explain why she was working for The Every. It was too big of a risk (in an environment where everything is recorded)
Delaney Wells waited years for the chance to work with ‘The Every’ to enter the system with the intent of destroying it. The interview process at the beginning was a kick.
Dan Faraday was impressed with her resume. He appreciated that she had been a libarts major. They didn’t only hire engineers.
Delaney’s college paper had been the beginning of her on-again, off-again subterfuge.
Even then she knew she’d need to appear to the Every company an ally, a confrere they could welcome inside the gates. Once inside, Delaney planned to examine the machine, test for weaknesses, and blow the place up.
Delaney lived in San Francisco by the Pacific in a tiny Sea Shed.
The Bay Area had become a comically unaffordable place, with landlords throwing ludicrous rent numbers.
Occasionally, old vestiges of the old San Francisco could still be found—odd attic units, covered garages, windswept cottages in the backyards of aging hippies refusing to gouge young tenants.
Delaney had found such a place deep in the Outer Sunset. Near the Doelger Fish Co. and smelling profoundly, the cottage came complete with furniture, a washer-dryer, and a thirty-six-year-old-man named Wes Makazian, and his dog, Hurricane.
The main house ( his two moms), was owned by Wes’s mother and her wife Ursula.
Eventually Wes gets hired at ‘The Every’, too……which was both horrifying and oddly comforting. Delaney felt the risk of her nefarious intention being discovered tenfold with Wes on campus.
“He was at once guileless and forgetful. It seemed quite possible he would mention her subterfuge just as casually as he’d order a poke bowl”
Wes is funny. His sudden fame’ with the company was hilarious.
One day at breakfast he wondered why bananas and tropical fruit was being served when they were out of season. California was three thousand miles from Guatemala.
So….Wes’s puzzlement— was sent to the EVERY ONLINE COMMUNITY.
They debated about what the campus’s recreational and decorative tomato and lemon and limes could be growing on campus.
Studies were planned, nearby farmland was bought and a sign hung over the eatery: WE HAVE NO BANANAS
Everyone was proud……
Any fruit not ground in California was accused stand found guilty:
Adding…to Bananaskam, was pineappleskam, and papayaskam.
I haven’t even touched the surface on both - many hilarious tidbits-
Death app? An app that listens to your conversations? HappyNow apps, and Eggers-creative-terminology throughout - (funny environmental rules of extremes: finger eating foods only - why waste paper - plates - or silverware?)
…..to the real seriousness of mega corporation control —
along with the suspense tale-tension of what happens to Delaney - Wes- and the dozens other characters I haven’t mentioned at the end.
Some crazy things take place in the later part of the book.
But
I was left with sincere questions about my own online participation.
“The Every” continued to control the flow of information for most people.
Think FACEBOOK… or GOODREADS….AMAZON…GOOGLE….don’t they do the same?
Add emails….texting…(online daily lifestyle)…are we exhausted spent online ushers?
If people spend most of their time on these platforms…we might only see what they promote.
How many of us live in a state of ‘aggressive’ truth seeking?
Scary to realize the world is undergoing a movement toward authoritarianism.
And what about ‘our’ basic needs? Hasn’t everybody experience some amount of psychological, or physical health issues? Upsets, depression, loss of purpose, distractions, brain fog, and other negatives associated with our online life?
And how bad is limitless choices killing our world?
So….in closing….because I could share a lot more about this book — which by the way THE HARDCOPY is beautifully designed with an interesting as-can-be- inside-flap write-up.
It felt like it took me forever to finish it. …partly due to it being a heavy-weight physical book and my vision (I guess 69 years with no glasses is coming to an end).
“The Every” — at times — felt as much like a live presentation documentary as much as apocalyptic.
I’m glad I read it — but I’m spent from it.
“The Circle” was more - haha - fun for me —- but this had a few more serious aspects that I can honestly relate to ‘now’ with serious concerns)….
….I did liked enjoy the characters — (but there wasn’t anything super special about any of them overall….which wasn’t the purpose of this book anyway) —
So I have mixed feelings.
I enjoyed most of the storytelling, the technological innovations, and the moral questions were worth contemplating….
And -
I’m a big fan of Dave Eggers. I admire him as a human being - love his humanity —
but this novel took some effort on my part to muddle through at times.
I’m glad I read it -
I’m always happy to read anything Dave Eggers writes. (but I’m spent!):> my brain is tired!
A SINCERE TAKE-A WAY though…..
How might I feel if I removed myself from all social media?
What might the advantages be? What might be the disadvantage?
3.5 rating up …
September 18, 2024
Interesting concept, if very similar to The Circle, but way too long and actually rather boring since the characters are cardboard
No books should be larger than 400 pages, maximum 450. No more than 3 ideas in a book.
And automate book-writing by AI, being responsible for the middle parts that people hardly read.
Subjectivity is objectivity awaiting data.
What a relief to no longer need to think.
The world is ending due to unlimited choice.
Spontaneity kills koala's.
Peace by surveillance.
Towards security by transparency.
Quite heavy-handedly done, this mashup by Google/Facebook with Amazon, forming the central point of The Every.
We have a girl called Delaney who manages to get into this evil empire and has her mind set on destroying the system from the inside. This is a thinly veiled excuse for Dave Eggers to fling a lot of ideas at the reader, with the narrator as an overly naive supporter to the world changing goals of The Every.
I have quite a few notes with interesting concepts included below, but overall this reading experience was tiring, like a large spaghetti dish being thrown at the reader, hoping something sticks. All in all this book is so much exposition, despite all of the interesting ideas.
1.5 stars, hardly rounded up.
Notes (not coincidentally quite a like to a mad, over-active Twitter feed):
An example is shame and Samaritan being drawn together as a new social credit system.
Or olfactory augmentation of games, interesting.
We have a thesis supervisor who is still a kind of critical thinker, quite like Shoshana Zuboff. Delaney herself is rather simply sketched in terms of motivation.
Although I do understand and feel sympathy for losing your shit when your parents start using emoticons in messages about dying family members.
The management theories and the Yayoi Kusama play garden are hilarious.
Or Everyones as a title for employees, not hiding 19 suicides in a few years at the campus.
We have Mae Holland from The Circle, a far away CEO of the mega company who is constantly called idealess. But how is cancelling physical cash not a revolutionary idea from Mae Holland? Give that girl her credit (pun intended).
There is even a Mercury mission as a side business, and an app to calculate with 91% accuracy your year and month of death, which AI now also kind of does.
A friendship index for one to one zoom interactions, based on emotional analysis mixed with machine learning. Since, only one thing is worse than being evaluated, is not being evaluated.
More sincere and authentic friendship due to statistics.
Gamification to collect 800 data points of users of an automatic calendar scheduling app.
We have responses like “I now need to be mindful” due to a kind of upgraded Apple Watch.
Male tight leggings in lycra are a less technological centered innovation, fortunately I have the idea the whole athleisure trend is dying away currently.
True voice to censor online speech and communication on a two billion people scale. Off course there is a weekly overview of offensive words used that is send to HR.
Everyone In Order automatic ranking of all the employee data (including steps and used language) to ensure an objective culling of the 10% bottom employees.
The I-Tracking app automatically measures what you read (in respect to a legal employee agreement). This leads to hilarious reading by Delaney of the terms and conditions: Till further notice this is a salmon free campus. Attendance of the dream Fridays meetings is mandatory, because they are awesome. DNA sequencing is mandatory for school attendance.
Pandemics as a catalyst to be open about all infectious diseases.
Dematerialization of pictures and clutter to digitize more data and change the materials to manure, all to combat the clutter in the world.
Just buy Maersk and Nestle on one day.
Oh but Huawei is the enemy, gotcha.
Well this tech evangelism is rather simple.
There is also a target number of complaints about fellow employees, quite Stalinist.
Virtual reality vacations, well goody, even more screen time and more servers needed.
Get (social) credits when you take an environmentally sound holiday.
Sensorial transfer of one person to another via satellite connection and thalamus implants.
Depression and mental health monitoring as a pretext to take as much screen time and ensure the most accurate prediction model.
A pilot to get babies to adjust to VR from the start of their life at least failed.
Freedom of choice as main stressor and thing to eliminate.
My shame aggregate is just not what it should be - about a girl who featured on a picture with someone who is accused of sexual misconduct and didn’t respond within 24 hours.
Well at least you can take your pets to the evil empire workplace.
Oh let’s abridge Jane Eyre, and get all the data of ebooks to make characters more likeable.
A purely darwinistic society, filtering out less well regarded actors.
I will never look at art before looking at the figures (of ranking).
Fictfix, automated adjustments of ebooks to make novels less boring.
Build a platform to see how happy you are based on your purchases, and a CO2 dashboard based on the purchases of buyers.
An app to stimulate spontaneity 🤣
Automated algorithmic messages to friends through an app. Or an automated departly app that scores the most close of kin and automates the condolences to those peoples.
Parental scoring through apps with AI, and a shaming app to get children into line.
The dying dog as a metaphor for the state of humanity is rather simple.
Consensus, an app to use the answers of anonymous people as a quorum for all everyday decisions, and along the way municipality decisions as well.
Very digital democracy meets dictatorship of the proletariate.
An app that shows you that you are at 71% of all goals you could be tracking, based on aggregated user data.
Eye tracking to know what you actually read, and if you have read a contract for real.
The snowflakes reacting terribly to exposure to the real world, impact stress as the name for dealing with unknown environments.
Cancel culture to the max, and impacting the real world through moral indignation and a sense of moral superiority.
Retreat from the physical world into corporate campuses to save other species (and ensure even further control on personal live by the corporate overlords).
Panopticon of complete surveillance.
What a dumb idea, how the presidential candidate would be undone by something already completely known by the outside world since The Every is transparent.
Uniformity is hardly the direction our world is moving towards, also not in the direction of enlightened despotism of environmentalism.
The Machine Stops or in another medium the Matrix or Minority Report do this vision of the future much better, and with some kind of incentive for people to submit to an evil empire.
Consumer rating on how predictable one’s purchases are.
Is Delaney in the last few chapters wrong in the head that she is now fangirling over someone she has observed like for a whole book?
No books should be larger than 400 pages, maximum 450. No more than 3 ideas in a book.
And automate book-writing by AI, being responsible for the middle parts that people hardly read.
Subjectivity is objectivity awaiting data.
What a relief to no longer need to think.
The world is ending due to unlimited choice.
Spontaneity kills koala's.
Peace by surveillance.
Towards security by transparency.
Quite heavy-handedly done, this mashup by Google/Facebook with Amazon, forming the central point of The Every.
We have a girl called Delaney who manages to get into this evil empire and has her mind set on destroying the system from the inside. This is a thinly veiled excuse for Dave Eggers to fling a lot of ideas at the reader, with the narrator as an overly naive supporter to the world changing goals of The Every.
I have quite a few notes with interesting concepts included below, but overall this reading experience was tiring, like a large spaghetti dish being thrown at the reader, hoping something sticks. All in all this book is so much exposition, despite all of the interesting ideas.
1.5 stars, hardly rounded up.
Notes (not coincidentally quite a like to a mad, over-active Twitter feed):
An example is shame and Samaritan being drawn together as a new social credit system.
Or olfactory augmentation of games, interesting.
We have a thesis supervisor who is still a kind of critical thinker, quite like Shoshana Zuboff. Delaney herself is rather simply sketched in terms of motivation.
Although I do understand and feel sympathy for losing your shit when your parents start using emoticons in messages about dying family members.
The management theories and the Yayoi Kusama play garden are hilarious.
Or Everyones as a title for employees, not hiding 19 suicides in a few years at the campus.
We have Mae Holland from The Circle, a far away CEO of the mega company who is constantly called idealess. But how is cancelling physical cash not a revolutionary idea from Mae Holland? Give that girl her credit (pun intended).
There is even a Mercury mission as a side business, and an app to calculate with 91% accuracy your year and month of death, which AI now also kind of does.
A friendship index for one to one zoom interactions, based on emotional analysis mixed with machine learning. Since, only one thing is worse than being evaluated, is not being evaluated.
More sincere and authentic friendship due to statistics.
Gamification to collect 800 data points of users of an automatic calendar scheduling app.
We have responses like “I now need to be mindful” due to a kind of upgraded Apple Watch.
Male tight leggings in lycra are a less technological centered innovation, fortunately I have the idea the whole athleisure trend is dying away currently.
True voice to censor online speech and communication on a two billion people scale. Off course there is a weekly overview of offensive words used that is send to HR.
Everyone In Order automatic ranking of all the employee data (including steps and used language) to ensure an objective culling of the 10% bottom employees.
The I-Tracking app automatically measures what you read (in respect to a legal employee agreement). This leads to hilarious reading by Delaney of the terms and conditions: Till further notice this is a salmon free campus. Attendance of the dream Fridays meetings is mandatory, because they are awesome. DNA sequencing is mandatory for school attendance.
Pandemics as a catalyst to be open about all infectious diseases.
Dematerialization of pictures and clutter to digitize more data and change the materials to manure, all to combat the clutter in the world.
Just buy Maersk and Nestle on one day.
Oh but Huawei is the enemy, gotcha.
Well this tech evangelism is rather simple.
There is also a target number of complaints about fellow employees, quite Stalinist.
Virtual reality vacations, well goody, even more screen time and more servers needed.
Get (social) credits when you take an environmentally sound holiday.
Sensorial transfer of one person to another via satellite connection and thalamus implants.
Depression and mental health monitoring as a pretext to take as much screen time and ensure the most accurate prediction model.
A pilot to get babies to adjust to VR from the start of their life at least failed.
Freedom of choice as main stressor and thing to eliminate.
My shame aggregate is just not what it should be - about a girl who featured on a picture with someone who is accused of sexual misconduct and didn’t respond within 24 hours.
Well at least you can take your pets to the evil empire workplace.
Oh let’s abridge Jane Eyre, and get all the data of ebooks to make characters more likeable.
A purely darwinistic society, filtering out less well regarded actors.
I will never look at art before looking at the figures (of ranking).
Fictfix, automated adjustments of ebooks to make novels less boring.
Build a platform to see how happy you are based on your purchases, and a CO2 dashboard based on the purchases of buyers.
An app to stimulate spontaneity 🤣
Automated algorithmic messages to friends through an app. Or an automated departly app that scores the most close of kin and automates the condolences to those peoples.
Parental scoring through apps with AI, and a shaming app to get children into line.
The dying dog as a metaphor for the state of humanity is rather simple.
Consensus, an app to use the answers of anonymous people as a quorum for all everyday decisions, and along the way municipality decisions as well.
Very digital democracy meets dictatorship of the proletariate.
An app that shows you that you are at 71% of all goals you could be tracking, based on aggregated user data.
Eye tracking to know what you actually read, and if you have read a contract for real.
The snowflakes reacting terribly to exposure to the real world, impact stress as the name for dealing with unknown environments.
Cancel culture to the max, and impacting the real world through moral indignation and a sense of moral superiority.
Retreat from the physical world into corporate campuses to save other species (and ensure even further control on personal live by the corporate overlords).
Panopticon of complete surveillance.
What a dumb idea, how the presidential candidate would be undone by something already completely known by the outside world since The Every is transparent.
Uniformity is hardly the direction our world is moving towards, also not in the direction of enlightened despotism of environmentalism.
The Machine Stops or in another medium the Matrix or Minority Report do this vision of the future much better, and with some kind of incentive for people to submit to an evil empire.
Consumer rating on how predictable one’s purchases are.
Is Delaney in the last few chapters wrong in the head that she is now fangirling over someone she has observed like for a whole book?
October 24, 2021
Talking about limited worldviews, you can currently read everywhere that Eggers' new book about a digital empire streamlining behaviors and centralizing perspectives is not available on Amazon. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not true; the ENGLISH edition might not be available on there, but there are other languages, and you can easily purchase translations on Amazon. Damn, I even got my ARC sent to kindle! Which brings us to the impossibility of avoiding the online retail giant, and thus to "The Every". The Circle's protagonist Mae Holland is now the head of a digital company that has swallowed all big players in the fields of online retail, social media, and data tracking. Enter Delaney Wells, who infiltrates the organization aiming to dismantle it from the inside. With her partner-in-arms Wes, she tries to spy out the biggest spy of all, saving humanity from total surveillance and thus unfreedom...
Eggers has written a novel of ideas set in the very near future that almost completey consists of expositions, descriptions and explanations. Delaney conveniently enters a job rotation program, so Eggers can show his readers all the evil projects of The Every, the characters are mere tools to illustrate the dystopia's main aspects which, as in every dystopia, aren't about the future, but about the present. The story gets lost, the pacing is off, there's a dramatic peak at around 80 % that evaporates into nothing. But the novel isn't even about Delaney or Mae (who remain mere cyphers), it's about...
...The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power and The Society of Singularities. Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as „[a] parasite economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioral modification” - Dave Eggers, we know you read that book. Both Zuboff's and Reckwitz' books illustrate the future of digital surveillance (which has already begun in China, but also in the West) and our wish to be special like everyone else, and Eggers melts these concepts into a story. The clue: He imagines the effects of digital surveillance and behavior control to be a future that resembles the GDR, and as I know that we will get that misconception a lot, let me point out that the GDR had real existierender Sozialismus, which is not the same as Marxism or Communism or Stalinism. In the GDR, options for consumers were limited, the economic system was a centralized planned economy, the Stasi was surveilling people and justifying it by claiming to expose the enemies of the people, and the whole thing served the people at the top of the food chain who were talking about the collective good - and how Eggers parallels that with the goals of The Every, that's pretty interesting. There's even a gag containing bananas: People should be ashamed to eat those imported fruits, as it hurts their CO2 footprint. In West Germany, the banana was traditionally a symbol for the products the people in the GDR were deprived of. In The Every, not providing bananas becomes a symbol of virtue.
Reading this with a fitbit on my arm and now reviewing in on GR, the app that gamifies reading itself, it's weird to follow Delaney when she finds out how The Every fights for the environment and woke causes by surveillance and public shaming. Tracking can be a convenient organizing tool, but where's the line, and how much freedom are we willing to give up in the name of convenience? Another potentially provoking idea: Do we rely on gamefication and control because we wish for a higher power to guide us, like, you know, God? When ambiguity is abolished, art gets abolished, and the social impact of taking away the option to freely choose your behavior was already explored in books like A Clockwork Orange: Dehumanization.
So while nothing in this book is new, and as a novel, it doesn't work (try H(A)PPY instead, which has a very similar theme, but is much more artful and challenging), it's a debate book and will reach people who will never tackle academic tomes. I'm also curious how they might turn this into a film after having changed the ending of The Circle siginificantly, so that with the film ending, Mae in The Every basically makes no sense. But if you want to learn more and think deeper of surveillance and consumption as distinction, read Zuboff and Reckwitz.
Eggers has written a novel of ideas set in the very near future that almost completey consists of expositions, descriptions and explanations. Delaney conveniently enters a job rotation program, so Eggers can show his readers all the evil projects of The Every, the characters are mere tools to illustrate the dystopia's main aspects which, as in every dystopia, aren't about the future, but about the present. The story gets lost, the pacing is off, there's a dramatic peak at around 80 % that evaporates into nothing. But the novel isn't even about Delaney or Mae (who remain mere cyphers), it's about...
...The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power and The Society of Singularities. Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as „[a] parasite economic logic in which the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new global architecture of behavioral modification” - Dave Eggers, we know you read that book. Both Zuboff's and Reckwitz' books illustrate the future of digital surveillance (which has already begun in China, but also in the West) and our wish to be special like everyone else, and Eggers melts these concepts into a story. The clue: He imagines the effects of digital surveillance and behavior control to be a future that resembles the GDR, and as I know that we will get that misconception a lot, let me point out that the GDR had real existierender Sozialismus, which is not the same as Marxism or Communism or Stalinism. In the GDR, options for consumers were limited, the economic system was a centralized planned economy, the Stasi was surveilling people and justifying it by claiming to expose the enemies of the people, and the whole thing served the people at the top of the food chain who were talking about the collective good - and how Eggers parallels that with the goals of The Every, that's pretty interesting. There's even a gag containing bananas: People should be ashamed to eat those imported fruits, as it hurts their CO2 footprint. In West Germany, the banana was traditionally a symbol for the products the people in the GDR were deprived of. In The Every, not providing bananas becomes a symbol of virtue.
Reading this with a fitbit on my arm and now reviewing in on GR, the app that gamifies reading itself, it's weird to follow Delaney when she finds out how The Every fights for the environment and woke causes by surveillance and public shaming. Tracking can be a convenient organizing tool, but where's the line, and how much freedom are we willing to give up in the name of convenience? Another potentially provoking idea: Do we rely on gamefication and control because we wish for a higher power to guide us, like, you know, God? When ambiguity is abolished, art gets abolished, and the social impact of taking away the option to freely choose your behavior was already explored in books like A Clockwork Orange: Dehumanization.
So while nothing in this book is new, and as a novel, it doesn't work (try H(A)PPY instead, which has a very similar theme, but is much more artful and challenging), it's a debate book and will reach people who will never tackle academic tomes. I'm also curious how they might turn this into a film after having changed the ending of The Circle siginificantly, so that with the film ending, Mae in The Every basically makes no sense. But if you want to learn more and think deeper of surveillance and consumption as distinction, read Zuboff and Reckwitz.
October 19, 2021
Dave Eggers’s new novel, “The Every,” isn’t just an emphatic satire of monopoly power. The book’s sales plan is itself a performance piece, an act of resistance against what Eggers calls “an ecommerce behemoth named after a South American jungle.”
In short: You can’t buy a hardcover edition of “The Every” from Amazon. Ever.
McSweeney’s, the publishing house that Eggers founded in 1998, released a statement about “The Every” saying, “As a quixotic blow against monopolies, the hardcover edition will be sold exclusively at independent bookstores nationwide and at store.mcsweeneys.net.” Amazon customers will have to wait till Nov. 16 just to get a paperback copy.
That little squeak of retail opposition may not bring the online merchant to its knees, but it’s the most interesting thing about “The Every.” In this unnecessary sequel to “The Circle,” Eggers goes around again, banging on about the corrosive effects of the Internet, social media and especially Silicon Valley’s hegemony. It’s no better for being entirely right. And at 577 pages, “The Every” suffers from the Web’s worst quality: unlimited space. It’s like a 27-hour TED Talk by some clever guy who thinks smoking is bad for your health. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
In short: You can’t buy a hardcover edition of “The Every” from Amazon. Ever.
McSweeney’s, the publishing house that Eggers founded in 1998, released a statement about “The Every” saying, “As a quixotic blow against monopolies, the hardcover edition will be sold exclusively at independent bookstores nationwide and at store.mcsweeneys.net.” Amazon customers will have to wait till Nov. 16 just to get a paperback copy.
That little squeak of retail opposition may not bring the online merchant to its knees, but it’s the most interesting thing about “The Every.” In this unnecessary sequel to “The Circle,” Eggers goes around again, banging on about the corrosive effects of the Internet, social media and especially Silicon Valley’s hegemony. It’s no better for being entirely right. And at 577 pages, “The Every” suffers from the Web’s worst quality: unlimited space. It’s like a 27-hour TED Talk by some clever guy who thinks smoking is bad for your health. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
January 28, 2022
If you enjoyed The Circle, you won't want to miss its sequel. I enjoyed it even more -- it had me chuckling quite often. I don't remember The Circle having been this funny.
The Every is satire, poking fun at so much of our modern way of life. It's also a warning about where and how things could be if we aren't careful.... Not all of it bad, to my way of thinking. But some of it? Terrifying for anyone who still knows how to think for themself and wants to continue doing so.
4.5 stars rounded down.
The Every is satire, poking fun at so much of our modern way of life. It's also a warning about where and how things could be if we aren't careful.... Not all of it bad, to my way of thinking. But some of it? Terrifying for anyone who still knows how to think for themself and wants to continue doing so.
4.5 stars rounded down.
October 1, 2024
Full disclosure – I didn’t finish this book, and I only award one star to books that fail to engage me enough to get me to the end.
This book is a sequel to The Circle a tale focussed on ‘the world’s most powerful internet company’. Well, now that company has been swallowed up by an even bigger concern and Delaney Wells is on a mission to destroy this big-tech behemoth from the inside. I got through the part where she’d been through a tortuous recruitment process, and she was now undergoing her induction, and it’s here that I pulled the plug. In fact, I rested it for a bit and tried to pick it up again, but I got a little further before setting it aside once more.
The introduction seemed interesting enough, if not eerily familiar from the first book. But the next section just seemed to consist of lists of required behavioural compliances for employees and details of the comprehensive surveillance they would be subjected to. Mainly, I was put off by a mix of the awkward humour employed and the sense that just about every vaguely controversial element currently doing the rounds had been thrown into the pot: from overt wokeism to big-tech seeking to monopolise the marketplace - and all stops in between. I’m concerned about these things, of course I am, but I didn’t like the tone of the story and didn’t fancy working through a further 15 hours of audio with a group of characters I already disliked.
Sorry, Mr Eggers, a worthy and clever tome. This might well be, but it’s not my cup of tea.
This book is a sequel to The Circle a tale focussed on ‘the world’s most powerful internet company’. Well, now that company has been swallowed up by an even bigger concern and Delaney Wells is on a mission to destroy this big-tech behemoth from the inside. I got through the part where she’d been through a tortuous recruitment process, and she was now undergoing her induction, and it’s here that I pulled the plug. In fact, I rested it for a bit and tried to pick it up again, but I got a little further before setting it aside once more.
The introduction seemed interesting enough, if not eerily familiar from the first book. But the next section just seemed to consist of lists of required behavioural compliances for employees and details of the comprehensive surveillance they would be subjected to. Mainly, I was put off by a mix of the awkward humour employed and the sense that just about every vaguely controversial element currently doing the rounds had been thrown into the pot: from overt wokeism to big-tech seeking to monopolise the marketplace - and all stops in between. I’m concerned about these things, of course I am, but I didn’t like the tone of the story and didn’t fancy working through a further 15 hours of audio with a group of characters I already disliked.
Sorry, Mr Eggers, a worthy and clever tome. This might well be, but it’s not my cup of tea.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2021
The Every is the biggest tech company in the world, controlling more and more of people’s everyday lives. But two young idealists, Delaney and Wes, believe things have gone too far and plan to join the company to bring it down from the inside...
The Every is the sequel to Dave Eggers’ 2013 novel The Circle and, like the previous book, it’s a mix of elements that succeed and fail to make for another ok dystopian novel.
Like too many sequels, The Every is very similar to the previous story with little variation, though there are of course some new features added. The Circle (a company like Apple/Google/Facebook) has now gobbled up and merged with the other giant tech firms, including Amazon (referred to only as “the jungle”), and rebranded as The Every to become the biggest company in human history. Mae Holland, the protagonist of the first book (the Emma Watson character if you just saw the Netflix movie), is now head of the company with former leader Bailey (the Tim Honks character) edged out.
And that’s really it in terms of how far things have progressed since the end of the first book. There’s obviously been a lot of advances in tech since 2013 with smart devices now pervading most people’s homes, so details like that are worked into the Every’s insidious reach (ie. “Ovals” = Apple Watches/FitBits). The message of the first book remains - privacy good, social media bad - with a heavier focus on personal freedoms and how much people are willing to sacrifice for the sake of convenience, which some of the leaps might be convincing or not, depending on your view of humanity and where we’re headed. Like Mercer in The Circle, there’s another lecturing anti-tech voice in the form of Agarwal, Delaney’s college professor.
The Every also has the same problem I had with The Circle in that the ideas Delaney and Wes pitch (designed to enrage people and bring the company down) become adopted far too quickly and easily with no nuance in the reactions around the world. Every single idea is a masterstroke without any setbacks which is crazy. They’re new hires - and nobody else at The Every, all of them geniuses, had already come up with these ideas?
The reactions of people to these new ideas is also vastly simplistic. Online behaviour is not real world behaviour - just because some people may not like a company or person and will say as much on social media doesn’t mean they’ll stop buying a product by that company or boycott that person’s output. I mean, banning travel and pets - and people just go along with it? That’s just not convincing. The reality is that though there is a lot of outrage on sites like Twitter, most people in real life are reasonable and wouldn’t behave like the minority of loud voices online.
But I get it - like The Circle, Eggers is writing a sort of parable and needs for these things to just be. He’s not shooting for realism. Still, I don’t find his core message of gloom and doom towards big tech that remarkable or persuasive. While you could argue we’re already there, I just don’t think we’re headed towards this authoritarian nightmare that Eggers is portraying and the views he’s presenting are a bit silly and myopic - all humans being controlled like mindless puppets? Please. Look at how many people in our world are refusing to take a life-saving vaccine from a horrendous disease. We don’t behave as one as a species.
The story is interesting - up to a point. It’s fun to see Delaney “rotate” (spend a week or two) through the Every’s many departments and Eggers has done a remarkable job of imagining a convincing tech corporation. The effect is like reading an Orwellian Alice in Wonderland/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with more than an air of The Prisoner about it. But it gets repetitive after a while and a bit dull once you realise this is basically the rest of the novel. Because the plot is nebulous and naively futile too, the ending is somewhat anticlimactic and underwhelming.
Some episodes felt unnecessary, like the whole homeless people living outside the campus thing and Delaney’s group decide to give them free tech, but I liked the sub-plot of a covert resistance in the company - of others with the mindset of Delaney and Wes - and whether or not it was real or a ploy to weed out actual dissenters. Delaney’s interrogation by someone who may or may not be an ally was very compelling, as was Mae’s Darth Vader-esque transformation from the character we saw in the first book and the person she is now.
Other aspects of the story were very clever. Like how, when in the Every cafeteria, Delaney and Wes have to speak in an extremely basic, almost pidgin-like language, to fool the AI, and Everys like Kiki who misuse multisyllabic words they don’t understand in sentences to hit absurd arbitrary vocabulary quotas for their Ovals. The commentary of how AI/algorithms have made us all talk gibberish instead of communicating clearly is brilliant. Some points are banal though, like how cult-like these companies can seem, and how too much constant information leads to poor sleep, burn-out and stress - duh.
There’s a lot in this novel that’s very imaginative, but, like the first book, The Every left me underwhelmed and unconvinced as to its overall message. I haven’t given up that many personal freedoms and I don’t expect people in general would be willing to give up as much as the people in the book’s world have. And this idea that companies like The Every will only lead to Orwellian futures - eh… I don’t know. I think Eggers is a bit too hung up on an either/or dichotomy and can’t see the myriad variations on where we go from here - which is fine, he’s not a soothsayer, it just makes his story less powerful.
The Every is essentially an updated version of The Circle. If you liked that, you’ll probably like this and for those who haven’t read The Circle, you don’t really need to read it first to pick up The Every. It’s a bit too long and repetitive in places and isn’t as powerful as I think it wants to be, but I found it to be a sometimes intriguing and compelling read - a decent, if forgettable, dystopian fiction.
The Every is the sequel to Dave Eggers’ 2013 novel The Circle and, like the previous book, it’s a mix of elements that succeed and fail to make for another ok dystopian novel.
Like too many sequels, The Every is very similar to the previous story with little variation, though there are of course some new features added. The Circle (a company like Apple/Google/Facebook) has now gobbled up and merged with the other giant tech firms, including Amazon (referred to only as “the jungle”), and rebranded as The Every to become the biggest company in human history. Mae Holland, the protagonist of the first book (the Emma Watson character if you just saw the Netflix movie), is now head of the company with former leader Bailey (the Tim Honks character) edged out.
And that’s really it in terms of how far things have progressed since the end of the first book. There’s obviously been a lot of advances in tech since 2013 with smart devices now pervading most people’s homes, so details like that are worked into the Every’s insidious reach (ie. “Ovals” = Apple Watches/FitBits). The message of the first book remains - privacy good, social media bad - with a heavier focus on personal freedoms and how much people are willing to sacrifice for the sake of convenience, which some of the leaps might be convincing or not, depending on your view of humanity and where we’re headed. Like Mercer in The Circle, there’s another lecturing anti-tech voice in the form of Agarwal, Delaney’s college professor.
The Every also has the same problem I had with The Circle in that the ideas Delaney and Wes pitch (designed to enrage people and bring the company down) become adopted far too quickly and easily with no nuance in the reactions around the world. Every single idea is a masterstroke without any setbacks which is crazy. They’re new hires - and nobody else at The Every, all of them geniuses, had already come up with these ideas?
The reactions of people to these new ideas is also vastly simplistic. Online behaviour is not real world behaviour - just because some people may not like a company or person and will say as much on social media doesn’t mean they’ll stop buying a product by that company or boycott that person’s output. I mean, banning travel and pets - and people just go along with it? That’s just not convincing. The reality is that though there is a lot of outrage on sites like Twitter, most people in real life are reasonable and wouldn’t behave like the minority of loud voices online.
But I get it - like The Circle, Eggers is writing a sort of parable and needs for these things to just be. He’s not shooting for realism. Still, I don’t find his core message of gloom and doom towards big tech that remarkable or persuasive. While you could argue we’re already there, I just don’t think we’re headed towards this authoritarian nightmare that Eggers is portraying and the views he’s presenting are a bit silly and myopic - all humans being controlled like mindless puppets? Please. Look at how many people in our world are refusing to take a life-saving vaccine from a horrendous disease. We don’t behave as one as a species.
The story is interesting - up to a point. It’s fun to see Delaney “rotate” (spend a week or two) through the Every’s many departments and Eggers has done a remarkable job of imagining a convincing tech corporation. The effect is like reading an Orwellian Alice in Wonderland/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with more than an air of The Prisoner about it. But it gets repetitive after a while and a bit dull once you realise this is basically the rest of the novel. Because the plot is nebulous and naively futile too, the ending is somewhat anticlimactic and underwhelming.
Some episodes felt unnecessary, like the whole homeless people living outside the campus thing and Delaney’s group decide to give them free tech, but I liked the sub-plot of a covert resistance in the company - of others with the mindset of Delaney and Wes - and whether or not it was real or a ploy to weed out actual dissenters. Delaney’s interrogation by someone who may or may not be an ally was very compelling, as was Mae’s Darth Vader-esque transformation from the character we saw in the first book and the person she is now.
Other aspects of the story were very clever. Like how, when in the Every cafeteria, Delaney and Wes have to speak in an extremely basic, almost pidgin-like language, to fool the AI, and Everys like Kiki who misuse multisyllabic words they don’t understand in sentences to hit absurd arbitrary vocabulary quotas for their Ovals. The commentary of how AI/algorithms have made us all talk gibberish instead of communicating clearly is brilliant. Some points are banal though, like how cult-like these companies can seem, and how too much constant information leads to poor sleep, burn-out and stress - duh.
There’s a lot in this novel that’s very imaginative, but, like the first book, The Every left me underwhelmed and unconvinced as to its overall message. I haven’t given up that many personal freedoms and I don’t expect people in general would be willing to give up as much as the people in the book’s world have. And this idea that companies like The Every will only lead to Orwellian futures - eh… I don’t know. I think Eggers is a bit too hung up on an either/or dichotomy and can’t see the myriad variations on where we go from here - which is fine, he’s not a soothsayer, it just makes his story less powerful.
The Every is essentially an updated version of The Circle. If you liked that, you’ll probably like this and for those who haven’t read The Circle, you don’t really need to read it first to pick up The Every. It’s a bit too long and repetitive in places and isn’t as powerful as I think it wants to be, but I found it to be a sometimes intriguing and compelling read - a decent, if forgettable, dystopian fiction.
January 12, 2022
The sequel to The Circle treads much of the same ground, although it seems blunter and more blatantly polemical than its predecessor. Set in the not-too-distant future, America’s well on the way to becoming a full-on surveillance society, homes that aren’t connected to the network, individuals who shun social media, are all treated with suspicion, increasingly grouped together in outsider communities. Independent media has died out, investigative journalism’s a relic of the past and untaxed, barely-policed corporations rule. After the turbulent time of pandemics and other, unnamed, crises, social media company The Circle has bought up a behemoth, e-commerce site - referred to only as ‘the jungle’ - and rebranded as The Every, with its headquarters sited in San Francisco Bay. It’s here that new employee Delaney Wells is working on her plan to dismantle the organisation from within, something she’s been anticipating for years. Eggers follows Delaney’s infiltration of The Every, her progress and her thwarted attempts to undermine its machinations. But Delaney’s plan to stir up public opposition to The Every’s operations by proposing ever more extreme programmes’s greeted with indifference at best, it seems the more preposterous her proposal, the more likely people are to adopt it without question, from algorithms that test their friends’ loyalties onwards.
Eggers rehashes many of the points he raised in The Circle although there are additional prongs in terms of world-building. But his arguments are hard to follow and often surprisingly muddled. He spends more time enumerating the benefits of The Every’s supposedly insidious products than making a case for their destructive qualities, particularly when it comes to apps that limit carbon footprints, seek to halt climate change and encourage less wasteful forms of consumption. He takes his belief in the sacred nature of concepts like privacy and the right to be off-grid as a given but it’s clear this is a society in which these are the concern of the few and not the many. Nor does he present alternatives that challenge the Every’s sinister vision. The future he dreads is strikingly close to the present, one in which the tech, or the potential for it, already exists and it’s really not clear what he wants to do about that. He doesn’t seem to be taking a Luddite stance so presumably what he wants is to set limits and boundaries but it’s not evident what these might be, how they might be achieved and policed or by what institutions. And although he offers up characters, like Delaney’s former tutor Professor Agarwal, as dissenting voices in his all-too-compliant society, they’re marginal at best, faint and uncertain. It doesn’t help that Eggers presents people as the greatest problem here, happy to be ordered and organised, desperate to rate and be rated.
It’s not clear what findings support his conclusions about behaviour, and for someone like me who lives in a country where even the fairly mild-mannered have proved remarkably resistant to reasonable measures like mask-wearing or adopting apps that track Covid infections, I’d like to know why he feels that resistance to overarching control’s unlikely or likely to be futile? There are also a number of pressing issues that aren’t addressed, digital poverty for example, a major problem globally yet miraculously insignificant in this future America, even though lack of corporate tax revenues has intensified, already rampant, social inequality. Eggers poses important questions, and many of his concerns are ones I share, but they demand a more considered, coherent response than this one. There are some hilarious satirical, inventive elements in Eggers’s portrait of a tech-driven dystopia but the wealth of detailing around the various apps and programmes that dominate this brave new world frequently overwhelm his slender plot and overshadow his sketchily-drawn characters. It’s an awkward piece overall, fairly readable despite its flaws but as a narrative it doesn’t really work, I didn't hate it but there were times when it felt remarkably close to the experience of being held captive on a street corner by a well-meaning but long-winded, obsessive.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton/Penguin
Rating: 2.5
Eggers rehashes many of the points he raised in The Circle although there are additional prongs in terms of world-building. But his arguments are hard to follow and often surprisingly muddled. He spends more time enumerating the benefits of The Every’s supposedly insidious products than making a case for their destructive qualities, particularly when it comes to apps that limit carbon footprints, seek to halt climate change and encourage less wasteful forms of consumption. He takes his belief in the sacred nature of concepts like privacy and the right to be off-grid as a given but it’s clear this is a society in which these are the concern of the few and not the many. Nor does he present alternatives that challenge the Every’s sinister vision. The future he dreads is strikingly close to the present, one in which the tech, or the potential for it, already exists and it’s really not clear what he wants to do about that. He doesn’t seem to be taking a Luddite stance so presumably what he wants is to set limits and boundaries but it’s not evident what these might be, how they might be achieved and policed or by what institutions. And although he offers up characters, like Delaney’s former tutor Professor Agarwal, as dissenting voices in his all-too-compliant society, they’re marginal at best, faint and uncertain. It doesn’t help that Eggers presents people as the greatest problem here, happy to be ordered and organised, desperate to rate and be rated.
It’s not clear what findings support his conclusions about behaviour, and for someone like me who lives in a country where even the fairly mild-mannered have proved remarkably resistant to reasonable measures like mask-wearing or adopting apps that track Covid infections, I’d like to know why he feels that resistance to overarching control’s unlikely or likely to be futile? There are also a number of pressing issues that aren’t addressed, digital poverty for example, a major problem globally yet miraculously insignificant in this future America, even though lack of corporate tax revenues has intensified, already rampant, social inequality. Eggers poses important questions, and many of his concerns are ones I share, but they demand a more considered, coherent response than this one. There are some hilarious satirical, inventive elements in Eggers’s portrait of a tech-driven dystopia but the wealth of detailing around the various apps and programmes that dominate this brave new world frequently overwhelm his slender plot and overshadow his sketchily-drawn characters. It’s an awkward piece overall, fairly readable despite its flaws but as a narrative it doesn’t really work, I didn't hate it but there were times when it felt remarkably close to the experience of being held captive on a street corner by a well-meaning but long-winded, obsessive.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton/Penguin
Rating: 2.5
June 2, 2022
The Circle, perhaps known more from the film than from the original novel, is less than a decade old but already seems so dated (part of why the adaptation failed). These are tech criticisms from another era, pre-2016 when the dreams of unifying the world through the Internet seemed like a real possibility
We've learned since then that the dangers of tech and social media are the complete opposite. Digital technology tends to divide people. This is essentially the problem.
Which makes the Every a strange novel. It's powerful, important, and highlights the extreme dangers of the future world we will soon find ourselves in. But it also doesn't ring true in its imaginations of an all-powerful tech monopoly that everyone blindly follows.
The Every company is essentially Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon all rolled into one--they even make obvious references to buying Amazon. And then, one by one, they invent apps which make the world far worse. A consistent theme is that the entire population just embraces it with no pushback, and that kind of unanimity doesn't seem like the path we're on. Suppose it is still possible, as anything is, it's just that the clear and present danger is more about how we all hate each other even if some people like being in a cult. I suppose my point is, I don't think the world will all join one cult, but rather multiple cults.
It's essentially as if a Mark Zuckerberg's utopian vision of the world became a dystopia. As if one of those guru's from fifteen years ago had all their dreams come true, and this is what would happen next.
Another criticism of the novel is that there's not much of a plot. More of a long list of evil ideas. There's the protagonist who infiltrates the company, but as speculative fiction goes it's more about the world-building and social criticism. The book is an extensive list of horror scenarios as her ideas--which are directly intended to cause people to hate the Every--are embraced and turn humanity into anxious phone-addicted robots who no longer have souls and lost all independent thought. The lesson seems to be that it can always get worse, and we are doomed. That is a valid point.
Call it cancel culture run amok, call it a critique of capitalist monopolism. Even if I don't think the world is going to get worse in this particular way, even as the book does slightly address issues like toxicity in netizenry and climate change, the aspects highlighted are important and well thought out. It's over the top, it's supposed to be satire, and you're supposed to feel terrified.
As part of the emerging canon of techie cautionary tales, Dave Eggers has written something we need to think about. I hope that somehow we make it, and nothing even close to this world ever happens. But who knows at this rate?
We've learned since then that the dangers of tech and social media are the complete opposite. Digital technology tends to divide people. This is essentially the problem.
Which makes the Every a strange novel. It's powerful, important, and highlights the extreme dangers of the future world we will soon find ourselves in. But it also doesn't ring true in its imaginations of an all-powerful tech monopoly that everyone blindly follows.
The Every company is essentially Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon all rolled into one--they even make obvious references to buying Amazon. And then, one by one, they invent apps which make the world far worse. A consistent theme is that the entire population just embraces it with no pushback, and that kind of unanimity doesn't seem like the path we're on. Suppose it is still possible, as anything is, it's just that the clear and present danger is more about how we all hate each other even if some people like being in a cult. I suppose my point is, I don't think the world will all join one cult, but rather multiple cults.
It's essentially as if a Mark Zuckerberg's utopian vision of the world became a dystopia. As if one of those guru's from fifteen years ago had all their dreams come true, and this is what would happen next.
Another criticism of the novel is that there's not much of a plot. More of a long list of evil ideas. There's the protagonist who infiltrates the company, but as speculative fiction goes it's more about the world-building and social criticism. The book is an extensive list of horror scenarios as her ideas--which are directly intended to cause people to hate the Every--are embraced and turn humanity into anxious phone-addicted robots who no longer have souls and lost all independent thought. The lesson seems to be that it can always get worse, and we are doomed. That is a valid point.
Call it cancel culture run amok, call it a critique of capitalist monopolism. Even if I don't think the world is going to get worse in this particular way, even as the book does slightly address issues like toxicity in netizenry and climate change, the aspects highlighted are important and well thought out. It's over the top, it's supposed to be satire, and you're supposed to feel terrified.
As part of the emerging canon of techie cautionary tales, Dave Eggers has written something we need to think about. I hope that somehow we make it, and nothing even close to this world ever happens. But who knows at this rate?
February 6, 2022
I have rarely encountered a novel with both such a promising beginning and such a disappointing finale. The early parts of The Every are clever, funny, and make some good points about the dangers of Big Tech. However, as the book progresses, these same points are made again and again with each repetition being a little more blunt and a little less clever or funny. This downward spiral ends with an abrupt and absolutely absurd ending. Upon reflection, one realizes that The Every is simply an anti-tech rant. The plot is merely an artifice to get readers to listen to Egger's ideology. Once he has made the same arguments enough times to satisfy (or exhaust) himself, he has no further use for the story and simply ends it as quickly as possibly.
March 25, 2022
The Every is a book that thinks it's incredibly smart, but doesn't have a single original idea. So just like The Circle in that respect. There is no reason this duology should be 1000+ pages total, or this book almost 600. It's predictable as all hell, has some really weird hangups about male bodies, and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. Eggers seems really keen on stripping characters of all common sense, seemingly just to make himself look smarter. There is a lot to be said about the influence of social media and tech monopolies, but this isn't it.
February 3, 2022
An fun premise with little plot, The Every is ultimately a disappointing sequel to The Circle. It is primarily a vehicle for Eggers' concerns about the future of social media and internet mega-retailers. His gripes and hypotheses are extremely amusing ... and hopefully not prophetic. The campus of his fictional monopoly is populated with some very comical characters, but they are not enough to sustain a story that ends predictably and doesn't tie up loose ends.
December 10, 2021
Explosive 🧨 Highly Controversial! Deeply contentious! 💭
The lightning progression to „The Circle“, Dave Egger‘d debut novel, emphasises all controversial thought patterns on digitalisation beyond corporate environments.
Yet, as an employer myself of a corporate environment, are we all going to be as visible and transparent as possible to expose not only individual data, but the ones of family and friends?
Data staging, data protection, data privacy are pivotal topics of our current societal issues, yet we lack of a plausible governance model.
The “Every” is a perfect stage setting of what is possible and incompatible in case of complete data transparency and thought controlling by means of ostensible submission of “Everyone’s”.
Corporate environments are going to be “heavenly safe places” to graduates who seek for jobs and will have to be more submissive than ever compared to today’s work practices in the midst of the pandemic.
Dave Eggers has yet again motivated his readers to contemplate over the consequences of the technology with his thought-provoking lecture.
Working in the field of digitisation, I am overly sensitive to the topics Dave is touching upon in his book and would love to see everyone formulate his / her opinion over future work places controlling complete data sets of individuals.
Great read. Welcomed criticism. Current agenda.
Happy thinking 💭 💭.
The lightning progression to „The Circle“, Dave Egger‘d debut novel, emphasises all controversial thought patterns on digitalisation beyond corporate environments.
Yet, as an employer myself of a corporate environment, are we all going to be as visible and transparent as possible to expose not only individual data, but the ones of family and friends?
Data staging, data protection, data privacy are pivotal topics of our current societal issues, yet we lack of a plausible governance model.
The “Every” is a perfect stage setting of what is possible and incompatible in case of complete data transparency and thought controlling by means of ostensible submission of “Everyone’s”.
Corporate environments are going to be “heavenly safe places” to graduates who seek for jobs and will have to be more submissive than ever compared to today’s work practices in the midst of the pandemic.
Dave Eggers has yet again motivated his readers to contemplate over the consequences of the technology with his thought-provoking lecture.
Working in the field of digitisation, I am overly sensitive to the topics Dave is touching upon in his book and would love to see everyone formulate his / her opinion over future work places controlling complete data sets of individuals.
Great read. Welcomed criticism. Current agenda.
Happy thinking 💭 💭.
October 15, 2022
Actually quite convenient when a writer writes the same book twice, especially if he has learned from the earlier experience. With The Every Eggers has writen a better readable and more enjoyable book then The Circle. Over the top hilarious and in the meantime still frightening. It is incredible where power via unlimited access to data can lead companies and people. This book describes that for an individual it is very hard to resist the logic of the group. On the other hand the book keeps on going for far to long. Even 500 pages would be too long to drive down the nail and it has 77 pages more to go than that.
June 20, 2022
DNF at about 2/3.
In this glimpse into the not-too-distant future, humans have willingly given up all right to privacy and self-determination. Their every move is monitored, quantified, and recorded; their choices are dictated by their social credit score. It would have seemed like an absurd and paranoid dystopian vision just a few years ago. Now it seems not only possible, but maybe even inevitable.
The main character is a young woman named Delaney. She is determined to infiltrate The Every, the goliath tech company responsible for all of this tyranny, and to destroy it from within. Unfortunately, she doesn't come across as someone who is remotely capable of doing this. She doesn't seem to have a compelling motive, a deep commitment to the goal, or any real plan for carrying it out.
It's a shame, because I loved The Circle and was prepared to love this sequel as well. There were moments of humor, horror, and brilliance in the parts I read. But it was just so long. And repetitive. And it didn't have much of a plot, or memorable characters. I just couldn't slog through any more of it, even though I was kind of curious to find out if Delaney succeeded in her mission. Usually, a book I DNF only gets one star from me. But although poorly executed, it was thought-provoking and had a lot of good ideas, so I threw in an extra star.
In this glimpse into the not-too-distant future, humans have willingly given up all right to privacy and self-determination. Their every move is monitored, quantified, and recorded; their choices are dictated by their social credit score. It would have seemed like an absurd and paranoid dystopian vision just a few years ago. Now it seems not only possible, but maybe even inevitable.
The main character is a young woman named Delaney. She is determined to infiltrate The Every, the goliath tech company responsible for all of this tyranny, and to destroy it from within. Unfortunately, she doesn't come across as someone who is remotely capable of doing this. She doesn't seem to have a compelling motive, a deep commitment to the goal, or any real plan for carrying it out.
It's a shame, because I loved The Circle and was prepared to love this sequel as well. There were moments of humor, horror, and brilliance in the parts I read. But it was just so long. And repetitive. And it didn't have much of a plot, or memorable characters. I just couldn't slog through any more of it, even though I was kind of curious to find out if Delaney succeeded in her mission. Usually, a book I DNF only gets one star from me. But although poorly executed, it was thought-provoking and had a lot of good ideas, so I threw in an extra star.
November 28, 2021
Oh my gosh, Dave Eggers. This book is slightly too long and bloated to get five stars from me, but the egregious ideas, the outlandish premises, the terrifyingly realistic world... Take my five stars, Dave Eggers, you deserve them.
It's been so long since I read THE CIRCLE and I honestly can't remember much except that it terrified me, so this totally works as a standalone. The note that stood out to me here though was climate change, and how everything became justified. Only a thread of philosophical thinking, but a lot of not-so-subtle critique on monopolies and monoliths. I think my favourite moment was eye tracking taking down a political figure.
Deeply unsettling but I loved reading it, so...
It's been so long since I read THE CIRCLE and I honestly can't remember much except that it terrified me, so this totally works as a standalone. The note that stood out to me here though was climate change, and how everything became justified. Only a thread of philosophical thinking, but a lot of not-so-subtle critique on monopolies and monoliths. I think my favourite moment was eye tracking taking down a political figure.
Deeply unsettling but I loved reading it, so...
December 1, 2021
Explosive 🧨 Highly Controversial! Deeply contentious!
The lightning progression to „The Circle“, Dave Egger‘s debut novel, „Every“ emphasises all controversial thought patterns on digitalisation beyond corporate environments.
Yet, as an employer of a corporate environment, are we all going to be as visible and as transparent as possible to expose not only individual data, but the ones of family and friends?
Data staging, data protection, data privacy are pivotal topics of our current societal issues, and yet we lack of a plausible governance model.
The “Every” is a perfect stage setting of what is possible and incompatible in case of complete data transparency and thought controlling by means of ostensible submission of “Everyone’s”.
Corporate environments are going to be “heavenly safe places” to graduates who seek for jobs and will have to be more submissive than ever compared to today’s work practices in the midst of the pandemic.
Dave Eggers has yet again motivated his readers to contemplate over the consequences of the technology with his thought-provoking lecture.
Working in the field of digitisation, I am overly sensitive to the topics Dave is touching upon in his book and would love to see everyone formulate his / her opinion over future work places controlling complete data sets of individuals.
Great read. Welcomed criticism. Current agenda.
Happy thinking 💭 💭.
The lightning progression to „The Circle“, Dave Egger‘s debut novel, „Every“ emphasises all controversial thought patterns on digitalisation beyond corporate environments.
Yet, as an employer of a corporate environment, are we all going to be as visible and as transparent as possible to expose not only individual data, but the ones of family and friends?
Data staging, data protection, data privacy are pivotal topics of our current societal issues, and yet we lack of a plausible governance model.
The “Every” is a perfect stage setting of what is possible and incompatible in case of complete data transparency and thought controlling by means of ostensible submission of “Everyone’s”.
Corporate environments are going to be “heavenly safe places” to graduates who seek for jobs and will have to be more submissive than ever compared to today’s work practices in the midst of the pandemic.
Dave Eggers has yet again motivated his readers to contemplate over the consequences of the technology with his thought-provoking lecture.
Working in the field of digitisation, I am overly sensitive to the topics Dave is touching upon in his book and would love to see everyone formulate his / her opinion over future work places controlling complete data sets of individuals.
Great read. Welcomed criticism. Current agenda.
Happy thinking 💭 💭.
December 28, 2021
By chapter 5 I was ready for this book to be over. I really enjoyed The Circle, which in 2013 delivered what I thought to be a very good satire of Google? Facebook? So I was very hyped for this sequel, but it felt like the author decided to write the same book again but, in this case, wanted to attack Amazon, but for some reason it still felt like an attack on a social media company.
I don’t need to like a protagonist to enjoy a story, but Delaney Wells, the main character in this book even with a motivation and somewhat of a backstory felt flat, and for some reason she has this obsession with men’s crotches. Every time this was mentioned reminded me of “she breasted boobily”.
At 600 pages, this book is almost 400 pages too long, it was at times entertaining and others very boring. It felt like a disjointed series of vignettes put together to try to make a novel. I wanted to finish the book to see where the story would go, but by the last few chapters, it’s obvious that the author either had no idea how he wanted to end it, or just ran out of time. The story starts falling apart and feels like lazy writing.
While the book had some interesting ideas, I personally don’t think there was enough in there to make an engaging 600+ page book. Maybe a collection of short stories would have been a better delivery method for this.
I don’t need to like a protagonist to enjoy a story, but Delaney Wells, the main character in this book even with a motivation and somewhat of a backstory felt flat, and for some reason she has this obsession with men’s crotches. Every time this was mentioned reminded me of “she breasted boobily”.
At 600 pages, this book is almost 400 pages too long, it was at times entertaining and others very boring. It felt like a disjointed series of vignettes put together to try to make a novel. I wanted to finish the book to see where the story would go, but by the last few chapters, it’s obvious that the author either had no idea how he wanted to end it, or just ran out of time. The story starts falling apart and feels like lazy writing.
While the book had some interesting ideas, I personally don’t think there was enough in there to make an engaging 600+ page book. Maybe a collection of short stories would have been a better delivery method for this.
October 4, 2021
3.5
This is a thoroughly enjoyable follow-up to The Circle. It follows a similar path in that it is a book of wild, exciting ideas that spark hilarity and horror in equal measure.
This time we have a central character, Delaney, attempting to bring the company (renamed The Every after buying out Amazon) down from the inside after securing a job there.
I would go as far as to argue that the ideas this time are even better, even more hideously likely to happen. And they come like a torrent. For the first 350 pages or so there's little by way of plot, more a slew of new apps and plans for humanity as Delaney attempts to push The Every off a cliff by coming up with every more insane and intrusive ideas - all of which are embraced by the conformist sheeples of the world's population. This is all so enjoyable to read and pick apart. The satire is rich and funny and, as with the best dystopian fiction, says more about where we are now than where we are going.
Then some kind of plot kicks in. If I'm being honest, this part wasn't that great. It was kind of predictable and not that novel. But I think I felt similarly about The Circle, too. Still, a really fun read.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable follow-up to The Circle. It follows a similar path in that it is a book of wild, exciting ideas that spark hilarity and horror in equal measure.
This time we have a central character, Delaney, attempting to bring the company (renamed The Every after buying out Amazon) down from the inside after securing a job there.
I would go as far as to argue that the ideas this time are even better, even more hideously likely to happen. And they come like a torrent. For the first 350 pages or so there's little by way of plot, more a slew of new apps and plans for humanity as Delaney attempts to push The Every off a cliff by coming up with every more insane and intrusive ideas - all of which are embraced by the conformist sheeples of the world's population. This is all so enjoyable to read and pick apart. The satire is rich and funny and, as with the best dystopian fiction, says more about where we are now than where we are going.
Then some kind of plot kicks in. If I'm being honest, this part wasn't that great. It was kind of predictable and not that novel. But I think I felt similarly about The Circle, too. Still, a really fun read.
November 1, 2021
The thing I found most interesting about The Every was that the hardback (offered in 32 different covers) would only be available in independent stores. I have to say, I loved this marketing idea. Also, the hardback would be released six weeks before the paperback version, and the paperbacks would be the only print copies available on Amazon, in large chain bookstores, etc.
Well, this stunt worked on me and I ran off to my local independent bookshop and bought two different copies for my bookshelf.
While reading this dystopian sci-fi tech sequel to The Circle, by the end I had chills of a modern 1984. In The Every, which is meant to be satirical but still felt scary nonetheless, the protagonist from The Circle continues with the “sharing is caring” theme but takes it to the gazillionth degree and creates The Every.
Enter Delaney who comes into the Every with the plan to sabotage it all.
I was laughing out loud at the craziness of the ideas that were being spewed out and embraced by the Everyones.
I throughly enjoyed this book and still love my 2 pretty hardcopies! They’re pretty chonky at just less than 600 pages so my arms got a great workout.
Well, this stunt worked on me and I ran off to my local independent bookshop and bought two different copies for my bookshelf.
While reading this dystopian sci-fi tech sequel to The Circle, by the end I had chills of a modern 1984. In The Every, which is meant to be satirical but still felt scary nonetheless, the protagonist from The Circle continues with the “sharing is caring” theme but takes it to the gazillionth degree and creates The Every.
Enter Delaney who comes into the Every with the plan to sabotage it all.
I was laughing out loud at the craziness of the ideas that were being spewed out and embraced by the Everyones.
I throughly enjoyed this book and still love my 2 pretty hardcopies! They’re pretty chonky at just less than 600 pages so my arms got a great workout.
March 23, 2022
It was fun to revisit the world of the Circle, now the Every after the takeover of an “ecommerce behemoth named after a South American jungle”. Delaney and her friend Wes have a plan to destroy the company from within by coming up with apps they think are so outrageous that everybody will at last rise up and rebel against the power of the Every. Unfortunately all their ideas are highly popular.
The story isn’t as compelling as the original, but there’s still plenty of humour and much to think about.
The story isn’t as compelling as the original, but there’s still plenty of humour and much to think about.
November 18, 2021
Hm ja. Vermakelijk boek, maar niet heel best geschreven? Had wel steeds weer zin om verder te lezen, maar vooral omdat ik het zo'n boeiend onderwerp vind. Personages zijn vrij vlak en het einde is redelijk voorspelbaar. Een afgeronde 2,5 ster.
November 1, 2021
Interesting & horrifying in a good way. But a bit simplistic and too long as well I’m afraid.
Thank you Penguin Random House UK and Netgalley for the ARC.
Thank you Penguin Random House UK and Netgalley for the ARC.
October 23, 2021
Vor ungefähr 2 Jahren hatte ich "The Circle" von Dave Eggers gelesen und war leider nicht so begeistert gewesen. Von der Idee und dem Ende des Buches ja, aber sonst nicht so sehr von seiner Erzählweise. In seinem neuesten Werk "Every" hat sich sein Schreibstil meiner Meinung nach gebessert und schafft es so wie in "The Circle" eine unheimliche Welt zu zeichnen, die durch übermäßige Digitalisierung und Programmierung die Welt komplett zu ändern droht.
Auch wenn die Geschichte von dystopischer Natur ist, ist sie nicht erdrückend. Manchmal musste ich schmunzeln, weil es so lächerlich war und musste mich daran erinnern, dass es tatsächlich so in der realen Welt auch geschehen könnte. Es war eine Mischung aus "Quality Land", "Brave New World" und der Serie "Black Mirror" (insbesondere die Folge "Nosedive").
Delaney lebt in einer Welt, wo Every, ein gigantisches Multi-Unternehmen - man denke an Facebook, Amazon und Apple als ein zusammengeschlossenes Unternehmen vor -, das alltägliche Leben kontrolliert. Indem sie bei Every als Mitarbeiterin einsteigt, versucht sie Every von innen zu Fall zu bringen, was zu fatalen Folgen führt.
Die größte Schwachstelle der Geschichte war leider genau Delaney. Sie zeigt nicht genug von sich und war zu eindimensional, sodass ich ihre Handlung nicht ganz überzeugend fand. Sie fühlte sich eher an wie eine Schachfigur, die durch das Unternehmen gescheucht wird, damit der Autor aufzählen kann, was für Horror-Szenarien durch die vollständige Digitalisierung und Automatisierung von Prozessen geschehen können.
Und das ist wiederum auch der stärkste Punkt des Buches: Die verschiedenen Bereiche, die hier aufgezählt werden, sind sehr nah an der Realität und fühlen sich nicht unbedingt neu an, aber sie sind beängstigend und beklemmend. In der Summe fühlt man sich zunehmend unwohl und man kommt ins Grübeln mit jeder Frage, die hinzu kommt.
-"Die beste Option ist die beste Option."
-"Wie lebe ich?"
-"Und wir entscheiden." (hier ist mit wir Every gemeint)
Das Buch gibt einem wirklich sehr viel Stoff für Diskussionen. Und all die Dinge, die im Buch beschrieben werden, wären tatsächlich auch machbar und in naher Zukunft umsetzbar. Vielleicht ist es auch diese Nähe zu unserem tatsächlichen Leben, was das Buch so spannend gemacht hat, obwohl die Aufzählung der digitalen Möglichkeiten an sich nicht spannend war. Trotzdem habe ich die knapp 600 Seiten ziemlich schnell fast ohne Pause gelesen, da ich doch wissen wollte was am Ende passiert. Insgesamt hat mich das Buch unterhalten und auch mit dem Ende bin ich zufrieden.
** Dieses Buch wurde mir über NetGalley als E-Book zur Verfügung gestellt **
Auch wenn die Geschichte von dystopischer Natur ist, ist sie nicht erdrückend. Manchmal musste ich schmunzeln, weil es so lächerlich war und musste mich daran erinnern, dass es tatsächlich so in der realen Welt auch geschehen könnte. Es war eine Mischung aus "Quality Land", "Brave New World" und der Serie "Black Mirror" (insbesondere die Folge "Nosedive").
Delaney lebt in einer Welt, wo Every, ein gigantisches Multi-Unternehmen - man denke an Facebook, Amazon und Apple als ein zusammengeschlossenes Unternehmen vor -, das alltägliche Leben kontrolliert. Indem sie bei Every als Mitarbeiterin einsteigt, versucht sie Every von innen zu Fall zu bringen, was zu fatalen Folgen führt.
Die größte Schwachstelle der Geschichte war leider genau Delaney. Sie zeigt nicht genug von sich und war zu eindimensional, sodass ich ihre Handlung nicht ganz überzeugend fand. Sie fühlte sich eher an wie eine Schachfigur, die durch das Unternehmen gescheucht wird, damit der Autor aufzählen kann, was für Horror-Szenarien durch die vollständige Digitalisierung und Automatisierung von Prozessen geschehen können.
Und das ist wiederum auch der stärkste Punkt des Buches: Die verschiedenen Bereiche, die hier aufgezählt werden, sind sehr nah an der Realität und fühlen sich nicht unbedingt neu an, aber sie sind beängstigend und beklemmend. In der Summe fühlt man sich zunehmend unwohl und man kommt ins Grübeln mit jeder Frage, die hinzu kommt.
-"Die beste Option ist die beste Option."
-"Wie lebe ich?"
-"Und wir entscheiden." (hier ist mit wir Every gemeint)
Das Buch gibt einem wirklich sehr viel Stoff für Diskussionen. Und all die Dinge, die im Buch beschrieben werden, wären tatsächlich auch machbar und in naher Zukunft umsetzbar. Vielleicht ist es auch diese Nähe zu unserem tatsächlichen Leben, was das Buch so spannend gemacht hat, obwohl die Aufzählung der digitalen Möglichkeiten an sich nicht spannend war. Trotzdem habe ich die knapp 600 Seiten ziemlich schnell fast ohne Pause gelesen, da ich doch wissen wollte was am Ende passiert. Insgesamt hat mich das Buch unterhalten und auch mit dem Ende bin ich zufrieden.
** Dieses Buch wurde mir über NetGalley als E-Book zur Verfügung gestellt **
February 5, 2022
Well.,that was not only very entertaining but also makes you think about where we might be heading in the not too distant future. The Every is a (loosely) fictitious monopoly online corporate giant, the product of the takeover of a huge online retailer "named after a South American jungle" by The Circle - the subject of Eggers previous novel on this topic
The protagonist of the novel, Delaney Wells joins the company with the aim to destroy it from within by coming up with ever more outrageous applications that infringe on people's freedoms.
I won't say anything further regarding the plot other than it all seems scarily likely our lives could to some extent be like this in the coming decade or two
The protagonist of the novel, Delaney Wells joins the company with the aim to destroy it from within by coming up with ever more outrageous applications that infringe on people's freedoms.
I won't say anything further regarding the plot other than it all seems scarily likely our lives could to some extent be like this in the coming decade or two
December 8, 2021
Simply horrible
If I ever meet Dave Eggers, I'll punch him in the face for wasting so much of my time. Spoilers, Mae wins again and kills our protagonist. 579 pages to end in nothing. It is well written. Dystopian but possible. A perfect waste of my limited free time. Don't waste your time reading this.
If I ever meet Dave Eggers, I'll punch him in the face for wasting so much of my time. Spoilers, Mae wins again and kills our protagonist. 579 pages to end in nothing. It is well written. Dystopian but possible. A perfect waste of my limited free time. Don't waste your time reading this.
December 3, 2022
This book is a follow-up to The Circle. Two huge companies have merged and become The Every, a single entity that monopolizes social media, search engines, and e-commerce. Its campus is on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. Delaney Wells has plans to take the company down after it put her parents out of business. She applies for a job at The Every with a goal of introducing concepts and products that would create a public outcry. Delaney’s friend, Wes, is a programmer who feels the same way and helps Delaney design a product that will appeal to the company and get her hired.
This book is a both speculative fiction and satire. It takes current tech trends to extremes. It is not a comedy by any means, but contains many humorous scenes, as the outlandish ideas gain support. Rather than taking the company down, the public loves these products. The obvious themes are privacy (and how willing we are to give it up), big data, and use of algorithms to drive behavior.
I found this book creative, entertaining, and thought-provoking. It is a warning not to let our much- loved tech monster get out of hand. The downsides are few. It is rather lengthy, and the ending did quite live up to the rest of the book. It is a great example of exaggeration for effect. The author has created a dystopian world that seems all too real. I hope the real tech companies are not taking notes.
4.5
This book is a both speculative fiction and satire. It takes current tech trends to extremes. It is not a comedy by any means, but contains many humorous scenes, as the outlandish ideas gain support. Rather than taking the company down, the public loves these products. The obvious themes are privacy (and how willing we are to give it up), big data, and use of algorithms to drive behavior.
I found this book creative, entertaining, and thought-provoking. It is a warning not to let our much- loved tech monster get out of hand. The downsides are few. It is rather lengthy, and the ending did quite live up to the rest of the book. It is a great example of exaggeration for effect. The author has created a dystopian world that seems all too real. I hope the real tech companies are not taking notes.
4.5
February 21, 2022
Enkele jaren na de gebeurtenissen in De Cirkel is het grootste techbedrijf ter wereld gefuseerd met een internetreus, waardoor de Circle het rijkste bedrijf is geworden dat de wereld ooit heeft gekend en het daaropvolgend zijn naam heeft veranderd in de Every. Onder leiding van Mae Holland is privacy nog verder ondergeschikt geraakt aan de technologische vooruitgang en de zo gewenste transparantie en apps registreren werkelijk elk onderdeel van het leven.
Er is een strijd tegen subjectiviteit, de journalistiek is verdwenen, er worden continu talloze gezondheidsgegevens gemeten, gesprekken worden afgeluisterd, mensen dragen bodycams en wonen in pods op de campus, overal is cameratoezicht, je wordt aangemoedigd om overtredingen te posten en collega’s te beoordelen en algoritmes bepalen alles, van de waarde van je vriendschappen tot de volgende ontslagronde. De inbreuk op de persoonlijke levenssfeer en de privacy is enorm groot, maar de meeste mensen lijken de objectiviteit en veiligheid fijn te vinden en groepsdruk is sterk aanwezig.
Delaney Wells is een zeldzame criticus van het beleid van de Every en bedenkt samen met vriend Wes een plan om te infiltreren in het bedrijf, om het zo uiteindelijk van binnenuit te kunnen vernietigen. Terwijl ze als flexwerker op allerlei plekken komt, bedenkt ze zeer vergaande apps om erachter te komen waar de grens van het bedrijf ligt. Maar haar ideeën worden enthousiast omarmd en ze wordt steeds verder opgenomen in de gelederen. Is er nog wel een kans om haar plan te laten slagen?
"'Wij dachten allebei dat we het bedrijf in de afgrond konden storten. Dat er op een gegeven moment een nieuwe app zou komen die te ver ging, die te ondermijnend en onmenselijk was. Maar jij en ik weten allebei dat dat niet gaat gebeuren. Er is helemaal geen afgrond.'"
Dave Eggers heeft in zijn tweede dystopische roman een intrigerende, verontrustende en soms angstaanjagend voorstelbare wereld geschapen. Een wereld die soms een grote ver-van-je-bed-show lijkt, maar op andere punten dichter bij de huidige werkelijkheid lijkt te komen. Het boek zet je aan het denken en hoewel het op een gegeven moment meer van hetzelfde wordt, blijft het boeiend en leer je door Delaneys ogen alle onderdelen van het bedrijf kennen, terwijl je je verbaast over de omarming van sommige nieuwe technieken. Hoewel ik het lichtelijk ongeloofwaardig vind dat alle ideeën van een groentje vrijwel direct worden bejubeld en Delaney als personage vrij kleurloos blijft, maken de tweedeling in de maatschappij, de ethische vraagstukken, de humor en de verbazingwekkende ontwikkelingen van Het Alles een interessant boek dat zeker het lezen waard is!
3.5⭐️
Er is een strijd tegen subjectiviteit, de journalistiek is verdwenen, er worden continu talloze gezondheidsgegevens gemeten, gesprekken worden afgeluisterd, mensen dragen bodycams en wonen in pods op de campus, overal is cameratoezicht, je wordt aangemoedigd om overtredingen te posten en collega’s te beoordelen en algoritmes bepalen alles, van de waarde van je vriendschappen tot de volgende ontslagronde. De inbreuk op de persoonlijke levenssfeer en de privacy is enorm groot, maar de meeste mensen lijken de objectiviteit en veiligheid fijn te vinden en groepsdruk is sterk aanwezig.
Delaney Wells is een zeldzame criticus van het beleid van de Every en bedenkt samen met vriend Wes een plan om te infiltreren in het bedrijf, om het zo uiteindelijk van binnenuit te kunnen vernietigen. Terwijl ze als flexwerker op allerlei plekken komt, bedenkt ze zeer vergaande apps om erachter te komen waar de grens van het bedrijf ligt. Maar haar ideeën worden enthousiast omarmd en ze wordt steeds verder opgenomen in de gelederen. Is er nog wel een kans om haar plan te laten slagen?
"'Wij dachten allebei dat we het bedrijf in de afgrond konden storten. Dat er op een gegeven moment een nieuwe app zou komen die te ver ging, die te ondermijnend en onmenselijk was. Maar jij en ik weten allebei dat dat niet gaat gebeuren. Er is helemaal geen afgrond.'"
Dave Eggers heeft in zijn tweede dystopische roman een intrigerende, verontrustende en soms angstaanjagend voorstelbare wereld geschapen. Een wereld die soms een grote ver-van-je-bed-show lijkt, maar op andere punten dichter bij de huidige werkelijkheid lijkt te komen. Het boek zet je aan het denken en hoewel het op een gegeven moment meer van hetzelfde wordt, blijft het boeiend en leer je door Delaneys ogen alle onderdelen van het bedrijf kennen, terwijl je je verbaast over de omarming van sommige nieuwe technieken. Hoewel ik het lichtelijk ongeloofwaardig vind dat alle ideeën van een groentje vrijwel direct worden bejubeld en Delaney als personage vrij kleurloos blijft, maken de tweedeling in de maatschappij, de ethische vraagstukken, de humor en de verbazingwekkende ontwikkelingen van Het Alles een interessant boek dat zeker het lezen waard is!
3.5⭐️
February 1, 2022
Ik ben begonnen in de leesversie (epub) van dit boek, maar dat wilde niet. Verveelde en ergerde me te pletter. Satire is niet Eggers sterkste kant, want scherp is het nooit, diepzinnig evenmin, laat staan dat er eye-openers zijn en lachen kan maar zelden. Er is maar één deel in dit boek... maar wacht. Ik begon dus in het boek, heb dat op pakweg een derde weggelegd, en besloten te wachten op de uitkomst van het audioboek om dan verder te luisteren.
Half december niet verder gegaan met het luisteren, maar opnieuw begonnen omdat vrijwel alles al weggezakt was. Kortom: 18 uur en 39 minuten geluisterd naar een verhaal dat één grote, dikke, vette herhaling van telkens weer dezelfde argumenten is. Al die leuke apps, al dat net een stapje verder bedenken van de technologie, allemaal hetzelfde met dezelfde uitkomst. Er is slechts één deel (van een uur oid?) dat wél geslaagd was als satire, en dat is het uitstapje dat Delaney organiseert. De voorbereidingen en de uitvoering ervan zijn hilarisch (en herkenbaar hilarisch). De rest van het boek kan iedereen overslaan. Dat scheelt vele uren ergernis. Ik schei uit met Eggers lezen, snap zijn ongerustheid (die deel ik), maar daar blijft het vanaf nu bij.
Overigens... alles overdenkend, ik denk dat ik het aan het voorlezen van Lidewij Mahler te danken heb dat ik het einde van het boek bereikt heb, want dat was best aangenaam om naar te luisteren.
Half december niet verder gegaan met het luisteren, maar opnieuw begonnen omdat vrijwel alles al weggezakt was. Kortom: 18 uur en 39 minuten geluisterd naar een verhaal dat één grote, dikke, vette herhaling van telkens weer dezelfde argumenten is. Al die leuke apps, al dat net een stapje verder bedenken van de technologie, allemaal hetzelfde met dezelfde uitkomst. Er is slechts één deel (van een uur oid?) dat wél geslaagd was als satire, en dat is het uitstapje dat Delaney organiseert. De voorbereidingen en de uitvoering ervan zijn hilarisch (en herkenbaar hilarisch). De rest van het boek kan iedereen overslaan. Dat scheelt vele uren ergernis. Ik schei uit met Eggers lezen, snap zijn ongerustheid (die deel ik), maar daar blijft het vanaf nu bij.
Overigens... alles overdenkend, ik denk dat ik het aan het voorlezen van Lidewij Mahler te danken heb dat ik het einde van het boek bereikt heb, want dat was best aangenaam om naar te luisteren.
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