The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Eggers, Dave. The Every. Vintage Books, 2021.

Delaney Wells has just moved to San Francisco and is preparing for her interview with the Every, a multinational technology company loosely based on Amazon. At her interview, Delaney performs well and affirms her interest in joining the company. Delaney desires to join the Every because she fears the company has grown too powerful and the negative effects of social media on society must be counteracted. When she goes home to her roommate, Wes, they discuss her plan of planting ideas at the company that will create negative sentiment toward the company.

After multiple rounds of interviews, Delaney is selected for a full-time position. She arrives for orientation and will be working on her first project, helping to scan physical photos to a digital cloud to save the space of physical storage units. Delaney is exhausted after her first few days at the company campus and the constant social interaction that is demanded of her. She must cultivate a robust social media presence and always be online and available. Wes also begins interviewing at the Every, but Delaney is worried he will not be able to mask his true intentions if he begins working there.

After Wes is hired, he and Delaney continue introducing applications they believe the public will find distasteful, such as applications to rank one’s friends and evaluate their conversations. Each application is more successful than the previous, discouraging Delaney from continuing but also underscoring the necessity of her work.

Delaney is moved to a new department that works on developing eye tracking technology. She has an ethical objection to the use of the technology, and there are laws that limit its use. Delaney has continued to try and make friends throughout the company. She meets a woman named Joan that she takes to immediately because Joan often turns off her body camera, another part of working at the Every that Delaney dislikes.

Delaney helps to launch a project that will expand the number of housing units on the Every’s campus. Demand swells and Delaney is also asked to move into the dorms. She cannot relax in her new pod unit and struggles to live with so many new people.

Wes is slowly indoctrinated into the company and tells Delaney he is no longer interested in working to destroy it. Delaney meets Gabriel Chu, another employee, and he subjects her to a private investigation after expressing suspicion about her motives. When he declares her to be a traitor, he reveals he is part of an inner resistance embedded in the company.

Delaney is invited to meet with the CEO of the company, Mae Holland, who later proposes the pair take a hiking trip where Delaney used to work as a guide. Delaney proposes her most radical idea yet on their trek up the mountain, but readers learn Mae is aware of Delaney’s sabotage and has brought Delaney on the hike to kill her. All the news about the resistance was fake, and Mae pushes Delaney off the cliff. The novel ends with Mae preparing to present a new radical app idea to an audience of Every workers.