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A review by whitneymouse
Startup by Doree Shafrir
3.0
I'm feeling conflicted about this book, to be honest.
The writing was excellent. It was engaging and made you want to keep reading. I'm not denying Ms. Shafrir has a talent for narrative writing. I'm just not sure how I feel about the narrative as a whole.
There are five main characters: Katya, a reporter who is the daughter of Russian immigrants; Sabrina, a Korean-American mother of two in a huge amount of debt and with a crumbling marriage; Isabel, a senior staff member at one of the main companies; Mack, the CEO of TakeOff; and Dan, Sabrina's husband and Katya's boss.
Both of the male characters are terrible and are basically the same person. The main conflict stems from Mack sexually harassing Isabel. At the start of the novel, he claims to be "in love" with this woman, but she clearly has moved on from their casual relationship and is in a serious relationship with someone else. This causes Mack to send her inappropriate pictures and increasingly become hostile towards Isabel, causing her to quit. Katya writes a story about it and in the end, Mack ends up having to resign as CEO. While I think it's important that he resigned, there is basically no resolution to this plot. Isabel gets threats on Twitter in the last chapter and that's it...no resolution.
Dan is an alcoholic cheater who kisses his subordinate, Katya, and THIS IS NEVER BROUGHT UP WITH HIS WIFE! Sabrina has plenty of her own issues, stemming from a shopping addiction that puts her and her family into crippling debt, but Dan yells at her about the debt, yells at her about the "side job" she's doing to pay down the debt, is barely there for his kids, comes home late and drunk multiple times throughout the story and there are basically NO repercussions for him. He's obsessed with taking down Mack for being terrible and sexually harassing people, but he's no better. When Katya spurns his advances and gets upset about something else messed up he did (more on that in a minute), he tells her to "take the day off", repeating what Mack tells Isabel. So how is he any different than this man he hates? He's not.
In addition to being a terrible boss, husband and father, Dan runs a Twitter account that he feels speaks for "marginalized tech workers"....despite the fact that he is a 40-year-old, white male. He heavily implies he's black while running this account and does not understand why that's an issue that he, as a 40-year-old, white male, is taking it upon himself to "speak for" tech workers that are marginalized. It never gets resolved other than a brief moment where his wife feels she needs to apologize for his behavior, which is ridiculous.
The parts that satire tech culture are mildly funny. Some of the companies mentioned, while contemporary now, might make the book feel dated in a few years. All in all, I can see from a writing standpoint why some are excited about this, but from a story standpoint, I feel it took on some heavy issues without real resolution or any encouragement to move someone to do something about these issues.
The writing was excellent. It was engaging and made you want to keep reading. I'm not denying Ms. Shafrir has a talent for narrative writing. I'm just not sure how I feel about the narrative as a whole.
There are five main characters: Katya, a reporter who is the daughter of Russian immigrants; Sabrina, a Korean-American mother of two in a huge amount of debt and with a crumbling marriage; Isabel, a senior staff member at one of the main companies; Mack, the CEO of TakeOff; and Dan, Sabrina's husband and Katya's boss.
Both of the male characters are terrible and are basically the same person. The main conflict stems from Mack sexually harassing Isabel. At the start of the novel, he claims to be "in love" with this woman, but she clearly has moved on from their casual relationship and is in a serious relationship with someone else. This causes Mack to send her inappropriate pictures and increasingly become hostile towards Isabel, causing her to quit. Katya writes a story about it and in the end, Mack ends up having to resign as CEO. While I think it's important that he resigned, there is basically no resolution to this plot. Isabel gets threats on Twitter in the last chapter and that's it...no resolution.
Dan is an alcoholic cheater who kisses his subordinate, Katya, and THIS IS NEVER BROUGHT UP WITH HIS WIFE! Sabrina has plenty of her own issues, stemming from a shopping addiction that puts her and her family into crippling debt, but Dan yells at her about the debt, yells at her about the "side job" she's doing to pay down the debt, is barely there for his kids, comes home late and drunk multiple times throughout the story and there are basically NO repercussions for him. He's obsessed with taking down Mack for being terrible and sexually harassing people, but he's no better. When Katya spurns his advances and gets upset about something else messed up he did (more on that in a minute), he tells her to "take the day off", repeating what Mack tells Isabel. So how is he any different than this man he hates? He's not.
In addition to being a terrible boss, husband and father, Dan runs a Twitter account that he feels speaks for "marginalized tech workers"....despite the fact that he is a 40-year-old, white male. He heavily implies he's black while running this account and does not understand why that's an issue that he, as a 40-year-old, white male, is taking it upon himself to "speak for" tech workers that are marginalized. It never gets resolved other than a brief moment where his wife feels she needs to apologize for his behavior, which is ridiculous.
The parts that satire tech culture are mildly funny. Some of the companies mentioned, while contemporary now, might make the book feel dated in a few years. All in all, I can see from a writing standpoint why some are excited about this, but from a story standpoint, I feel it took on some heavy issues without real resolution or any encouragement to move someone to do something about these issues.