For a three-act plot analysis, put on your screenwriter’s hat. Moviemakers know the formula well: at the end of Act One, the main character is drawn in completely to a conflict. During Act Two, she is farthest away from her goals. At the end of Act Three, the story is resolved.
Act I
The Circle's first act is also its first book. In Book I, Mae Holland takes up her brand-spanking-new job at the Circle and slowly gets accustomed to the social climate on campus. Although it takes her a little while—and more than one embarrassing slip-up—to get the hang of things, by the end of The Circle's first book, Mae has become a fully committed member of the Circle community.
Act II
Book II of The Circle encapsulates the novel's second act. Mae Holland is now fully "transparent." She wears a camera that records all of her movements and activities throughout each day, and she's more committed than ever to the Circle's ideologies and plans.
Mae is so committed, in fact, that she sacrifices her relationship with her parents, the sanity of her best friend Annie Allerton, the life of her ex-boyfriend Mercer Medeiros, and the desperate plans of the Circle's creator, Ty Gospodinov, in order to ensure that the Circle will never be broken apart.
Act III
You've probably guessed it already, Shmoopers, but The Circle's Book III is also its Act III. As the novel draws to a close, we learn that Mae Holland has done everything she can to make sure that the Circle will continue to move forward with its plans to create a purer, more utopian world.
So what if that world includes technologies that give their users direct access into other people's minds, without their consent? The world deserves unfettered access to any information it desires, and Mae is going to do her best to make sure the world gets it.