Please Report Your Bug Here
Ratings4
Average rating2.5
15
Ratings4
Average rating2.5
“An unexpected, inventive, heartfelt riff on the workplace novel—startup realism with a multiverse twist.” —Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley Introducing Josh Riedel's adrenaline-packed debut novel about a dating app employee who discovers a glitch that transports him to other worlds Once you sign an NDA it's good for life. Meaning legally, I shouldn't tell you this story. But I have to. A college grad with the six-figure debt to prove it, Ethan Block views San Francisco as the place to be. Yet his job at hot new dating app DateDate is a far cry from what he envisioned. Instead of making the world a better place, he reviews flagged photo queues, overworked and stressed out. But that's about to change. Reeling from a breakup, Ethan decides to view his algorithmically matched soulmate on DateDate. He overrides the system and clicks on the profile. Then, he disappears. One minute, he’s in a windowless office, and the next, he’s in a field of endless grass, gasping for air. When Ethan snaps back to DateDate HQ, he’s convinced a coding issue caused the blip. Except for anyone to believe him, he’ll need evidence. As Ethan embarks on a wild goose chase, moving from dingy startup think tanks to Silicon Valley’s dominant tech conglomerate, it becomes clear that there’s more to DateDate than meets the eye. With the stakes rising, and a new world at risk, Ethan must choose who—and what—he believes in. Adventurous and hypertimely, Please Report Your Bug Here is an inventive millennial coming-of-age story, a dark exploration of the corruption now synonymous with Big Tech, and, above all, a testament to the power of human connection in our digital era.
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Hmmm, I'm struggling with this rating! I would say I enjoyed this book, but not for the reasons one might expect, and I found the first half to be much more compelling than the second.
What worked well for me:
- The descriptions of the tech scene were uncomfortably, uncannily lucid - though I didn't know this when I read it, I'm not at all surprised that the author was the first employee at Instagram!
- The vivid sense of place; San Francisco (and Oakland, and the South Bay, and, hell, even the shuttle!) truly were supporting characters.
- The dynamics between Ethan, our somewhat hapless protagonist, and the much stronger and more opinionated characters around him, like Mona and “the Founder”.
- Ethan's obvious discomfort and struggle to find his footing throughout his time at DateDate and in his early days at “The Corporation”; I thought his thoughtful, tentative interiority - especially contrasted against the brash confidence of his environments - was extremely well-done.
What didn't work so well:
- Just one, but it's a big one: I didn't find the central conflict - will Ethan be able to get back to the “mystery world” and achieve [spoiler]? - particularly clear or compelling. I understand it's sci-fi, but I read a lot of sci-fi, and the logic behind the glitch fell flat for me. I think I would have been willing to overlook this if the events the glitch set in motion were more interesting, but they almost felt like a distraction - I cared more about Ethan's deteriorating relationship with Noma, and his general identity issues, than this plotline. (And I understand that they're related, but ... that felt a little forced.) Overall, the second half of the book - in which this plotline takes precedence - just didn't feel real or exciting to me, even though in theory it should have.
Thanks to Henry Holt & Co and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
