The Every

A Novel

By: Dave Eggers

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Length: 16 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the award-winning, best-selling author of The Circle comes an exciting new follow-up. When the world’s largest search engine/social media company, the Circle, merges with the planet’s dominant ecommerce 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 at the Every. 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 Makazian, they look for the Every'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, outrageous outfits, 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

Critic Reviews

"Once a decade a book like The Every advances the frontier of literary excellence: a book that reflects our culture. Predicts our future. Worm-holes into our subconscious. Delivers artful and complex characters, metaphor, ideas, narrative. Provides percussive movements of levity, gravity, grace, suspense, hilarity.” (Kerri Arsenault, The Boston Globe)

“(A) great-grandchild of Zamyatin’s We, but now the 'perfect society' is Silicon Valley. Be careful what you wish for!” (Margaret Atwood, via Twitter)

“Eggers is a wonderful storyteller with an alert and defiant vision. His down-home decency means he pulls short of articulating a thought that recurred for me throughout reading The Every: threatened with spiritual extinction through conformism, sanitization, shame, inanity and surveillance, it might yet be our evil, our perversity, our psychopathology, our hate that prove the saving of us.” (Rob Doyle, The Guardian)

The narrator sounds like he works for the Every!

I like this story and what it says about society, but I’m having a hard time with the narrator. He says the word “said” like that one word is an entire sentence. A huge pause after the person’s name, then annunciation of “said” as of it’s a proper noun.

“Let’s walk Hurricane!”
Wes.
Said.

When he pauses, it’s almost like he’s afraid of his “oval” pinging him for not using a challenging word, and he’s waiting to see if there’s a better choice.

I know it’s party the author using “said” too many times, but the narrator could make it less obvious by emphasizing the actual dialogue, rather than the dialogue tag.

If you can get past that, it’s definitely worth a listen. It made me laugh, and the concepts seem absurd, but I don’t think we’re as far off from this type of life as we would like to believe. Thank you Dave Eggers for once again pointing out the dangers of technology.

The WORST narrator cannot defeat this great book

But he tries heroically throughout. I think this narrator might be high. Crazy intonations apropo to nothing. The horrible narrator is actually a distraction the listener must focus to overcome. I think Eggers should sue him for tortious interference. "He Saaaaaaid .....She saiiiiid" is repeated ad nauseam. Why is EVERY character - hero, villain, or extra - made to sound like the snarkiest idiot one has ever encountered? Even the Chapter numbers are read very very strangely. Why?! The narrator's performance is distractingly self-indulgent.

But the book is entertaining and, more importantly, poignant social commentary. 1984 updated and just as good as the original.

incredible story, irritating delivery.

The Every is every bit as brilliantly crafted and disarmingly chilling as its predecessor, The Circle. The narration, however, is a huge detractor. The narrator, while seemingly enamored of the sound of his own unctuous, lounge lizard-esque, sarcasm-laden voice, renders all the characters cartoonish in the same superficial manner. Generic, whiny cartoon nerd would be a good describer. Since the book is told from a female character's point of view and has so many women's voices among the characters, why not have gone with a woman narrator instead of a man imitating female voices in a stereotypical manner? The other super annoying narrative tic, noted by other reviewers, is the narrator's insistence on leaving a huge and unnecessary pause between every character's name and the word "said". If the intention of Audible is to get you to buy the print book after listening to the audiobook, mission accomplished! I'm going to have to read The Every again in print form to enjoy it properly without being constantly irritated and distracted by the delivery.

Is it #orwelladjacent? #thenewnewspeak? IDK

A dystopian novel for our times. When Delaney Wells gets a job at The Every, her goal is not to make a new start, it is to dismantle it from the inside. But maybe that is not what everyone else wants.

This thought provoking novel bring our modern electronic social lives and kicks it up to ten. It is deeply, and in some places very darkly, satirical. Almost frighteningly so. It at once captivated me. I think Dion Graham did an excellent job a capturing the characters. I have read reviews that it may be over the top but I think that is what gives it its uniqueness. It is not the run of the mill dystopian sci-fi that we have been getting lately.

It will leave you thinking "what did I just listen to"?

#spoilerpositive...but really no one should be afraid of spoilers. Spoilers cut down our carbon footprint by 99.98% and even the the Dali Lama supports them. #lovetospoil

No animals were harmed while writing this review. In fact, why do we use a 5 star rating? 1 should be the rating that is the best! "Every" one says "We're Number 1" so ratings should be the same! Better yet; get rid of stars all together. Even real ones. STARSKAM!!!!

sarcastic spoof

intriguing but frightening almost apocalyptic tale of the end of free will by tech conformity. entertaining but not cheerful. cynics will feel right at home.

Scary good

This is a terrifying story that hits way to close to home for comfort. Dave Eggers is obviously close to the Big Tech industry and paints a bleak picture for the fate of humanity.

Love the performance of the narrator. Really good!

Two Popeyes up.

I liked The Circle, I loved The Every.

I know that the last thing I should have done was to buy this on Audible, a division of Amazon (The Jungle), but I did. Long story and I’ll go back and buy the hardcover from an indie bookstore.

Meanwhile, I get to review the book on Amazon’s site where it will likely remain for a nuclear half year, or until Google buys Amazon and becomes The Every. Or Vice-versa.

The book is a hilariously scary critique of every tech giant, every consumer, every allegedly woke do-gooder (counting myself here) and every part of our current and future lives. It’s about everything. Every. Thing.

Completely captivating and enjoyable from start to finish, despite being scary as hell.

thought provoking and entertaining

Eggers at his best! Excellent performance. I am starting to hear Dion Graham whenever I read anything by Eggers.

So Many Amazing Ideas

This book has a lot of Eggers’s genius in it and I was totally rapt and really wondering what would come to pass…and then, suddenly, he rushed and snow gloves the ending in a way that was kind of a let down. Still, he is brilliant and we should
he very afraid of a lot of what he dreamt up in this book coming to pass. Terrifying and brilliant. You go Dave!

Volume of readers voice

The reader dropped his voice slot and the end of sentences for dramatic effect. The effect was great and engaging but it lowered the volume. I had to rewind and turn up the volume a few times. Hope that’s helpful. Great read!