Fast paced story about young start up employees in NYC who get involved in a scandal. It's easy reading, somewhat funny and a real page turner - a good choice for reading during a holiday with lots of distractions. The author is a woman and it's nice to have the female POV for most of the story. It wrapped up a little abruptly but otherwise an enjoyable ride. More of a 3.5 but not quite a 4. ( )

I have such mixed feelings about this book. I wanted to like it, because it featured so many of the things I’m interested in and fascinated by: startups, New York, tech, social media, journalism, motherhood - you name it, this book had it. The novel held my attention throughout, and yet, when I turned the last page, I was profoundly disappointed.

There was so much that was right with this book: from the extremely insightful look at Sabrina’s struggle with her identity post-motherhood to the fascinating glimpse into startup culture, there was much to like here. The book was well written and entertaining. The author is clearly familiar with the tech world, and she uses her knowledge to good effect throughout.

But there was so much that was wrong with this book, too:
1) The shallowness of all the characters. All the men were jerks - seriously, ALL of them. Like, 100% of the male cast was somewhere on the uber-jerk end of the jerk-to-nice guy scale. The women weren’t much better, and few had any redeeming qualities at all. That made everyone difficult to like and gave me no one to root for.
2) The plot felt superficial. Most of it revolves around sexual harassment in the workplace, but what’s usually a sensitive and important topic was dealt with in a frivolous way and it just didn’t feel strong enough to carry a nearly 300-page book.
3) The ending is atrocious. It’s ambiguous and doesn’t tie anything up. I thought the book had been misprinted and the last chapter was left off, because I literally turned the page to read the next chapter only to discover there was nothing there. Ambiguous endings are one of my major pet peeves, and this novel right here perfectly illustrates the reason why. So frustrating! ( )

While I'd love to say I liked this book, it's difficult due to shallow characters, a soap opera type story and droll concept. I struggled through it and found it predictable in all ways, with characters that I've seen countless times, mostly in bad soap operas. Oh well... ( )

Really did not enjoy this at all. Overly descriptive to the point of distracting, not much of a plot, the characters were underdeveloped, and the ending just hangs there. I guess it's to let us readers imagine what would happen next. I imagine that the three women characters went off somewhere to talk to Lena Dunham about things, since I think they have as much understanding about what feminism does as she has.

Let's begin. "Startup" I think was supposed to be a tongue and cheek look at the startup and tech industry in New York. Told in the third person we follow 3 characters.

Mack McAllister (rising star in the startup industry) Sabrina (back in the workforce working for one of Mack's managers) Katya (a reporter) who works for Sabrina's husband, Dan. There is also the character of Isabel who I guess you could say is the catalyst for a lot of things that happen in this book, but I don't consider her or Dan main characters really. They are just there for the majority of the book.

I didn't like any of the characters. The men were awful, but I think I was supposed to root for the three women (Sabrina, Katya, and Isabel) at the end of the book and I didn't. The three of them were just as terrible as the men in this book and I hated that we had Katya being a particular hypocrite about what the character of Mack got up to considering what was going on with her too.

Honestly most of the things that were discussed went over my head a fair bit. I am 37 so I am on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I loathe Snapchat and will never get an account. Why does anyone think I need to see a picture of you with a dog nose? Ahem.

I didn't like the writing in this at all. It took til about the 40 percent mark to even get the story up to interesting status for me. The first couple of chapters were painfully over written and it was hard to even read some of the sentences.

There was one person at MorningRave who did not post any selfies to Instagram. She was there to dance, and only to dance. Nor did she say hello to Mack. She knew who he was, but he was not yet aware of her existence. Katya Pasternack was at the party with her boyfriend, Victor, who himself was a founder of a small company called StrollUp.

Katya weighed ninety-nine pounds and had never gone to the gym a day in her life, but she danced at this party as though it were her job.

Mack McAllister exited his East Village apartment building wearing a royal-blue gingham-checked button-down shirt tucked into jeans and a navy blazer. He carried a soft brown briefcase with two buckles, given to Mack by his father when he graduated from the University of Texas and on which his initials--WSM, William Sumner McAllister--were embossed in gold capital letters.

The ending fell flat for me. I guess I should have been all girl power. Instead I rolled my eyes. ( )

Oh, here's a fast, engaging read set in the tech scene in New York. It features Millenials, the old and the young among them. And it does a great job examining and critiquing these things through that lens.
But what really struck me is how it really felt like it was about women in the workforce. The challenges of being a young woman at work. The challenges of being middle-aged in a position with mostly young employees. The challenges of the tech bro gods and working with and for them-as a woman-and how truly awful it really can be.

Shafrir's examination of marriage with children & working parents also felt spot on. She handled deftly the idea that modern men really shoulder as much as we (they?) think they do when it comes to divvying up domestic life.

Generally, this book just resonated in a way that surprised me. It's like she listened in on my chats with friends over the past 15 years of my life and spun it into a story about 3 women.

I would've read 400 more pages on this subject. Truly. ( )