When Mae is hired to work for the Circle, the most powerful internet company in the world, she feels like she has received the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, operated from an expansive campus in California, connects users' personal emails, social media, and finances with its universal operating system, leading to a single online identity and a new era of transparency. Mae can hardly believe her great fortune in working there, even as life outside the campus becomes increasingly distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague shakes her, even as her role in the Circle becomes more and more public.