Review: The Social Circle by Sophie Wan

The Social Circle by Sophie Wan

Blurb from Goodreads:

When Maggie Tang arrives as a transfer-student at UC Berkeley in 2005, she has no idea how her life is about to change. In the hallway of her dingy apartment building, she meets Adam, Charles, and Hari, the friends with whom she’ll create Circle, the world’s first major social media platform. But navigating her ambitions alongside love and friendship isn’t so simple, and when they inevitably collide, Maggie exits Circle in dramatic fashion.

A decade later, Maggie is struggling with a new professional venture when she receives an invitation to celebrate Circle’s 10th anniversary on a private island in Norway, with the three people she has tried hardest to forget. While she’s still bitter about how things ended, her company desperately needs the publicity, and deep down, Maggie can’t resist the handwritten plea at the bottom—Come, please.

Between boat rides and adventurous hikes, bit by bit the reunion begins to feel like old times. But the journalist writing a retrospective on Circle is eager for a scoop, which means they can’t tiptoe around the past forever. And when a new truth is revealed about their fall-out all those years ago, Maggie will have to decide whether to run again or fight for a second chance with the people she once loved most.

 Meh - this didn't feel new or unique.  Although I really liked Maggie as a character, the story felt derivative and uninspired.  I was hoping for something new and this wasn't it.  Still, this may work for you if you like behind the scenes tech novels.  Hope you have better luck!

The Social Circle comes out next week on March 3, 2026 and you can purchase HERE.  

Circle is ten years old today.

Maggie is reminded of this everywhere she goes. All her usual news outlets are covering it. She overheard her employees talking about it in the microkitchen.

Ranch 99 is the only safe place for her. With its speakers blaring Chinese music from the '70s and old ladies shuffling between sauce aisles and patting cabbages, it's not hard to pretend that the screens and algorithms that normally consume her life are far away. She shifts on the vinyl chair beneath her, the sort guaranteed to make the sound of a wet fart when it's time to peel yourself off and leave. It was either this or the Philz across the road, where stressed-out Apple ants like to congregate, their badges flapping from their waists as they clutch their mint mojitos and discuss product delays like the very fabric of the planet is ripping apart.