I can see why this book is so popular. There's even a movie based on it due out in 2016, starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks (which I'm very much looking forward to seeing). Comparisons to dystopian classics Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four are apt, except that this time the boogeyman isn't Big Government or Big Industry -- it's Big Tech. 
 It is flawed, mind you. I got the feeling that Eggers was trying to be subtle about the moral of the story at first -- that allowing the encroachment of technology into private lives is perilous -- but I personally thought it got to be a bit tiresome pretty quick. And I have to admit that I bristled 2 or 3 times at the descriptions of the young, hip techies just blindly accepting whatever shiny new thing their company asked them to swallow. Maybe I'm just a little touchy about all the "Millennials blah blah this," and "Snake People blah blah that," swirling around in the media these days, but the assumption that pretty much everyone, but especially almost all young adults would just unquestioningly accept some of the shit that went down in this book really rubbed me the wrong way. 
 So... why 3 stars? Because despite all of that, I practically devoured the book. The plot pacing is addictive. Warts and all, it's still a well-written, provocative book.