Annie. The blonde one.

       In the beginning of The Circle, Annie is described a “doofus”. A cute, blonde,  gangly, effervescent doofus. We start with a knowledge of general information about Annie: she’s adored and looked up to because she is a member of the Gang of 40, an elite group at the Circle that oversees many inventions who made sure her roommate from college and best friend, Mae, got a job at the Circle. As the story starts to pick up, we see more sides to Annie, starting with her massive sense of humor and mischief. At the beginning of the novel, she plays a prank on Mae by leading her into a fake cubical with an old laptop, squeaky chair, and “fucking burlap”. There’s also many instances where her reputation and power at the Circle is shown, like when she leads Mae to the Ochre Library at the Circle campus, which was designed by one of the Circle Wise Men, and not supposed to be seen by new employees. Also, when one of Mae’s coworkers, Gina, sees Mae casually messaging Annie, she says “I’m jealous you know her so well”.

       However as the novel continues, we start seeing a more cautious and fearful side of Annie’s personality. After Annie says that a worker at the circle named Alistair, calling him "crazy" and a "Needy nut", and Dan, who "enables the nuts" to Mae, she seems to immediately realize her mistake. Afterwards, she panics and messages Mae 11 times to confirm that everything she says remains between them, set on protecting her position and reputation within the Circle. Once she sees Mae gaining mass popularity in the Circle, Annie decides to show off her position within the company to Mae by joining an experiment called PastPerfect. However, while in this experiment, many dark secrets about Annie’s past is revealed. With every new dismal fact, Annie becomes more depressed and vulnerable. Seeing such a once happy and positive character slowly break down through pages of text and unfortunate events is not the most cheerful reading experience, but the author does a great job in adding more depth to Annie’s character in the Circle.