The Social Circle, Sophie Wan
The Social Circle, Sophie Wan
List: $28.99 | Sale: $20.29
Club: $14.49

The Social Circle

Author: Sophie Wan

Narrator: Natalie Naudus

Unabridged: 9 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/03/2026


Synopsis

 "A beautiful exploration of the tangled dynamics of friendship, ambition, and the pressure of both failure and success. I adored it!”
—Natalie Sue, bestselling author of I Hope This Finds You Well

The Social Network meets Daisy Jones & The Six in this dual-narrative novel about a group of college friends who found a social media company in the early days of the internet, their scandalous falling out, and the 10-year anniversary exposé that forces them back together again.

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.

About Sophie Wan

Sophie Wan is the author of Women of Good Fortune. She graduated from UC Berkeley and now lives in San Francisco. Before she became an author, she was very good at writing emails. Find her on Instagram, @thesophiewan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by camille! on November 14, 2025

Thank you to Harlequin and Netgalley in exchange for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. I'm on two minds on this book -- on one hand, it did make me cry like a little baby about the importance of friendship and being connected with other people. In that camp, the squishy emotional bit of my b......more

Goodreads review by puffin on November 17, 2025

There is so much I want to gush about here. First of all, the author's voice is so distinct and assured; there is a minimalist elegance to the prose that I found deeply satisfying (as Charles says: simple is beautiful). I also thought she did an excellent job in grounding both timelines in different......more

Goodreads review by qq on December 10, 2025

This book was very well written, I loved the transition between the past, present, and Sylvia's article. It felt seamless and captured the narrative very well. However, I just couldn't get myself to be invested in the characters. I was more so in it for the tea and the drama, something that helped m......more

Goodreads review by Ridhima on February 10, 2026

tw: mentions of sexual harassment This book reads like a different version of The Social Network but with more focus on the personal relationships between the founders. Told from Maggie's third person POV, and alternating between 2016 and the present; Sophie Wan's The Social Circle is a poignant......more

Goodreads review by Jenny on November 28, 2025

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC. All opinions are my own and freely given. I thought this was a pretty good novel, and though I had some issues with it, I found myself pretty engaged throughout. Things I liked: - In general, the characters and their ARCs; s......more