The Every - Book Review

 

The Every

Dave Eggers

3.5 stars
 

 

 

A worrisome, long, frightening book about where humanity could be/is headed. It is disturbing in its references to what each of us easily accepts today within our social media. There are continuous less than subtle mentions of Amazon, FB and Google that could push the anxious person over the edge and caused  some tiresome chapters. Overkill, or making a point, I'm not sure.

Eggers mentions the Apps that share your neighbours everyday conversations, mixed with the banning of pet videos, and statistics on eye-tracking made this a mix of terrifying and hilarious. Yes, there were many laugh out loud moments too.

I read this as a stand alone, and do not feel that I needed The Circle, the previous book to get the gist of what the author was putting across. It seems that in this dystopian world, which could be just around the corner, a person cannot trust anyone, moral character is shady, and values are fluid. Now that is plain scary! 

As we all know we are being continuously 'guided' to make choices, whether it is buying mustard or wearing something that will be out of fashion by the end of the season, but let's think and talk and not give away our minds. 

If anything, let this book serve as a warning on our environmental impact, on watching what we share on social media, walking not driving and doing our best to maintain some level of our personal agency. Would our lives be less stressful if we had fewer choices, absolutely. But the brainless world of automated thinking needs to be kept at bay.

As prophetic as this book may be (yes, I'm scared for the little ones we have), I choose to believe that human beings are wiser and kinder than the characters in this book.

Mr. Eggers, can you write something a little less depressing next time? We all need some hope.

And now for something more uplifting, I've just opened HumanKind, Brad Aronson.

Cheers,



 


 

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