If you like your summer reads served with a hefty side order of tweets, selfies and slack channels, you will probably enjoy BuzzFeed writer Doree Shafrir's novel Startup, a darkly comic, smart and keenly observed cautionary tale set in New York's fast-paced, social-media-saturated tech startup world.

The novel opens at a booze-free, pre-breakfast Morning Rave in a gentrified factory in hinterland between Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The young, the hip and the tech-savvy are all there to dance, network and post hashtag-hijacked selfies to their Instagram accounts. Present at the party are two twenty-somethings: Mack McAllister, the ambitious founder of a fledgling startup called TakeOff, and Katya Pasternack, a budding reporter struggling to prove her worth at online tech news outlet TechScene.

Mack needs to secure investment to launch the new-and-improved version of TakeOff app, a mindfulness app that scans your texts, social media posts and other data, in order to anticipate how you might be feeling at a given time and offer motivational suggestions to improve your mood. However, scaling up a small business into a larger, slicker operation — especially in New York, thousands of miles from Silicon Valley — comes with its challenges, and Mack himself, as a high-profile figure in the industry who has grand, perhaps even hubristic ambitions, is just one inappropriate text or tweet away from a crushing fall from grace.

Meanwhile, the founders of TechScene want the reporters to stop going for the low-hanging clickbait stories that bring in a steep but transient spike of page views and seek out the stories that yield greater engagement: repeat visits, comments, social media shares and 'scroll depth'. This is no mean feat when you can spend weeks reporting on a story only to be scooped by a single tweet spoiling the take-home message if you wait too long before publishing.

Fate brings Mack and Katya together a Katya accidentally stumbles on a potential lead that could secure her future at TechScene while destroying Mack's career. But nothing is straightforward in the incestuous New York tech world, where a reporter's boss might be married to someone who works for the company the reporter is writing about, and where publishing the story might also harm the reporter's relationship with her own boyfriend, who also runs a startup.

Shafrir's novel is sharp, fast-paced and all too familiar — particularly for anyone who works in technology, new media, social media or digital marketing. The point of view alternates between several key characters, some of whom are more likeable than others, but most are convincingly written. Mack sees himself as Steve Jobs, but others are less confident in his leadership and talent. He reminded me more of Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network; at one point, he literally clicks refresh in an app waiting for a response, mirroring the final scene of David Fincher's film. Katya, as the young, solitary, single-minded hack, is a recognisable trope too, but Shafrir's writing brings verve and wit to the character.

I finished Startup in a single day and it's a tightly plotted, compelling tragicomedy of the digital age. It would also make a nice companion piece to Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed — or, of course, The Social Network, if you haven't already seen it.

If you are looking for a great work of contemporary fiction about the high-paced tech startup world told from the POV of the clash of 20- and 30-somethings, a Travis/Uber-like man-child that harasses women and the women who don't put up with this behavior, then this book is for you. Well done and taken from today's headlines and a great story too.

I love good wicked humor and this has that. It takes a lot to write a humorous novel that doesn't come across as spiteful. This is engaging, great and captures all the bro culture that I've been exposed to in the startup world!

This was such a marvelous, clever, funny book that I quickly flipped pages to see what would happen next. The style and keen eye were spot-on, and I hope it's a major seller. I look forward to seeing what the author does next

I had no empathy for the characters and the plot was not particularly captivating. This is probably partially due the fact that I have not particular affinity for apps.

Startup is a fun read, perfect for your next summer vacation book. It centers really on three different women - all working in the startup tech industry either directly or peripherally. The book really excels when discussing the world they live in, the new way of life for millennials and "older people" aka 30-somethings. The world is a different place and this book shows that. It also dapples with the newest issues with equality without getting too preachy.

I was sorry to see the book end, and feel like I didn't get as satisfying of an ending as I was hoping for. Maybe a book 2?

TakeOff is the hottest app that everyone is talking about. The app's founder is Mack McAllister who has visions of greatness for his app and himself. His startup has nerf-gun wars, an open office environment, and is the place that everyone wants to work. He has worked hard to land some Venture Capitalists who are going to give him lots and lots of money to take the app to the next level, that is if he doesn't get in his own way.

Katya Pasternack works for a tech magazine in the same building as the TakeOff crew and is looking for a story that will really launch her career to the next level. She is at a party when she happens to see the incoming texts of Mack's assistant, Isabel. They were not the kind of texts that a boss should be sending to an employee if you catch my drift. Katya knows that there is a story there, but is unsure if she should pursue it. In an industry that is still very much dominated by males, she knows that this story could either make or break her career. What will she do?

Startup is probably one of the most relevant books on the shelves right now. It seems like whenever there is a topic that is in the news a lot there are a lot of books that hit the market about that topic - like Ponzi schemes. Startup is the first book that I have read about the tech world. What makes this book so relevant to my life is not only the female characters in a male dominated world, but one of the narrators is a married mother of two who is in her late 30's in an industry dominated by youth. It was so easy to relate to Sabrina for several reasons, but mostly that "elder of the group" situation. Personally, I thought Mack was an egotistical ass and deserved everything that could be headed his way if Katya writes the story. There were a few times I found myself losing interest - just because Mack was such an ass - but I stuck with it to the end and I am glad that I did.

Bottom line - Startup is a fun read about an industry that doesn't get written about a lot. The author, a Buzzfeed writer, does an excellent job of exposing life in a mostly male dominated industry. It really makes for an interesting read.

Details:
Startup by Doree Sharir
On Facebook
Pages: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown, and Company
Publication Date: 4/25/2017
Buy it Here!

The novel revolves around three characters. Journalist Katya works hard to keep her job in a tech blog even if her boyfriend - who doesn’t want her career to collide with his - and her boss - who seems to have more than professional mentorship in mind - don’t make things easy for her. Sabrina, a thirty-six-year-old mother of two, is still trying to understand how to work through social media and to make her marriage work. And Mack McAllister is a young entrepreneur who started a successful tech company and has to deal with investors and a complicated love life.
I loved the female characters in this novel. They are strong women who stand up for themselves and don’t let arrogant men walk over them. The author perfectly portrays the difference between two generations: the over-thirties who grew up before the internet and whose main concern is building a family and finding a house in the right school district and the younger generation, just out of college, who party all night, drink green juice and communicate only through an app. Set in an age where social media influences people’s lives, this is a funny, sharp, and absorbing novel about ambition, money, love, and family.

Startup is an engaging tech-y read that sucked me in and kept me glued to the page. As a geek who reads a lot about startups and the tech world, I really enjoyed the storyline. I especially liked the discussion of women in tech and lack of minority representation - this is all real, and there are numerous reports out showing what an issue it is. All of that led to my 3 stars, but what kept me from adding more is the "now" of it - given the speed at which tech moves, this book will be outdated in less than a year. An example of an excellent book that is tech-y about social media, etc, is [book:The Circle|18302455] by Dave Eggers - by NOT naming company/app names, you can keep a book relevant for much longer. I liked the "older"-in-tech view from Sabrina, which was reminiscent of the movie "The Intern" (which I loved) and is also something I have seen elsewhere. As a 36-year-old mom, I also could relate to Sabrina's storyline more than anyone else's in the book.

I appreciate that Safrir is writing from a place she knows dearly, and do not question the authenticity of her experiences - I just wish she could have made the story more timeless. And writing about this story online is actually making me feel incredibly meta ;-)

I absolutely loved this book. I follow Doree on social media so I knew what a witty writer she was., and this book doesn't disappoint. Even though the characters are larger than life, Startup doesn't seem like social satire, but rather a realistic portrait of what it's like to work in the tumultuous world of tech startups. It's funny and insightful and I am already recommending it to my friends and coworkers.

This one isn't for me. I was drawn to the world of Startups as a lot of my life is there already; I thought being set in a familiar world would be intriguing. I soon realised, however, that I read to escape the world of notification frenzy and emoticons - i wasn't happy with the technology invading my reading world at all! No reflection on the writing etc though.

BuzzFeed Senior Culture Writer Doree Shafrir skewers the New York tech industry in her new novel, Startup. Mack McAllister is a man with a plan. His mindfulness app, TakeOff, is poised on the edge of greatness; if he can just get that next level of VC (venture capital) funding, he can roll out the next version of it and become a billion dollar business. In the meantime, he's the king of his world: an eligible bachelor, sleeping with eligible bachelorettes, including his Marketing Hero (managers are heroes, assistants are ninjas), Isabel, but he's not looking for anything serious. It's not like he's 30, for crying out loud.

Katya Pasternack is a writer with TechScene, a tech blog that's putting the screws to their journalists to get them to produce more. She needs a big scoop, a juicy story she can break wide open, so she can get out of fifth place on the leaderboard they've just put up at work. Her boss, Dan, takes an interest in her career - maybe a little too much of an interest, but he's ancient - he's, like, 39.

Meanwhile, Sabrina Blum, a thirty-something, exhausted mother of two, works for TakeOff, which happens to be in the same building as TechScene. She copes with her faltering marriage by shopping herself into a mountain of credit card debt and turns to more creative solutions when the cards start getting canceled. She works at TechScene because it's better than being home all day long with the kids, but her coworkers are a decade younger, single, and more tech-savvy than she is. This group works together, plays together, and, in Mack and Isabel's case, even sleeping together. Sabrina goes home and takes care of her kids - she doesn't fit in with "company culture" - while her husband (who's also Katya's boss) stays out, claiming to have worked late.

Things start going very wrong for Mack when he sends a very personal message to Isabel, kicking off a viral shitstorm that could ruin TakeOff. By virtue of where she works and who she works with, Sabrina gets caught in the middle; Katya sees her chance at getting her big break. The fallout's going to be huge.

I'm a veteran of late '90s Silicon Alley, and this book could have been written back in 1998 and I wouldn't have known the difference. Same mindset, same bullshit, smaller technology. The obsession with youth still holds; the idea that you work and play 24/7, with the same people is still there; the free food, the Nerf guns in the factory space open workplaces, it's all the same.

Shafrir's send-up of startup culture is witty; a biting satire, with deliciously catty stereotypes, from the spin doctors to the founder "I am Jobs, I am God" mentality. Everyone's terrified of turning 30, but at the same time, it seems SO far away that they can't comprehend actually being that OLD. She nails the exhaustion of keeping up with the pace of social media, technology, and the coworkers; she nails it with the entitled ideology of the tech culture. I liken Startup to Bonfire of the Vanities: you'll love the book, but you won't find one single likable character in here. It's a A delicious zinger to read on your commute.

If your goal in writing a novel is to start conversation than Doree Shafrir succeeds in Startup. On the surface the novel is a quick-read satiric look at the young tech industry springing up in NYC, but underneath, business is the least of the issues Shafrir explores. At the center of the novel is Mack McAllister—the creator of TakeOff, an app that helps ease the stress of daily life. He’s twenty-eight—a key point, because almost no-one in the novel is even thirty. So, I’m as old as dirt. Which is just fine because it means I can sit back and watch the mayhem unfold when Shafrir decimates personal and professional boundaries with plotlines that perfectly mirror much of what’s happening in the world today.

Combining millennials, startup companies, technology and click-bait online media is a slam-dunk for controversy. If you aren’t familiar with any of these, trust me: it’s the Wild West. Remember Mack and his company, TakeOff? Well, he’s sleeping with Isabel, the company’s Engagement and Marketing person. They’re not exclusive, but when Isabel moves on to someone else Mack doesn’t get the memo. So, one drunken night, he sexts her. Then texts her when she doesn’t respond. Katya is a reporter for TechScene, a news site, where increasing pressure for more content and traffic means playing fast and loose with traditional journalistic ethics. Last, but not least, her boss is Dan and his wife, Sabrina works at TakeOff, for Isabel. Quite an incestuous little world and given that everyone in it is tech savvy the secrets in Startup don’t stay secrets for long.

Shafrir goes all in with what can go wrong with these scenarios. This makes for entertaining, but provocative reading. If someone is your boss and a friend with benefits with whom you’ve shared sex and nude photos and they continue to send them to you is that sexual harassment? Is deciding to call it harassment only for the money ethical? Shafrir isn’t content with just professional ethics—through Sabrina and Dan she explores the ‘older’ (they’re in their thirties- gasp!), settled crowd’s issues with marriage, parenting, and debt.

Back to my original point: Startup hits on a lot of today’s social issues and does it well. Every response to an event or character is likely to be changed later because the novel is built on grey area. By and large, this works really well. Right up until the last paragraph that is. About that, I’m not so happy. In fact, I hated the book’s ending. At best, I feel as if there must be a sequel on the way. At worst, Shafrir was told to wrap it up before she was ready. Either way, it left me aggravated because the novel strikes a great balance between snarky humor and deeper subjects, leading me to believe the ending would pack a punch. Instead, it fizzled. Is it enough to kill a recommendation? No. At most, prep yourself for a ho-hum ending that doesn’t jibe with the tone of the rest of the novel. The majority of Startup is filled with enough millennial entitlement, snark and new age speak that this cranky woman was laughing out loud.

This book features an ensemble of various people within the tech / startup community. In many ways, the story solidifies the stereotypes in the tech community: nerf gun fights in startup offices, company paid happy hours, untraditional work attire, and ridiculous amounts of money. I was bothered by the lack of healthy relationships in the book, between couples, with themselves, with the world around them. It felt like everyone was there to use the people around them, like a big ongoing scam. Frequently throughout the book I felt like the story wasn’t fiction but instead was a well-disguised inside joke or expose.

This was not a typical genre or even generation for me, but I really enjoyed this satirical portrait of millennials negotiating the startup culture of today's tech world. Shafrir gives a great snapshot (no pun intended) of what is becoming our social media driven society.

Her biting wit resulted in me smiling a lot as I read....especially at some of the made up (or maybe not so fictional) apps being created. What struck me is that despite the changing culture of the workplace as technology becomes a driving force, some things like the role of women and workplace relationships haven't changed all that much.

The ending is somewhat abrupt and enigmatic....but perhaps it is reflective of the environment about which Shafrir writes. Enjoy this book for the satire it is and marvel at what we are becoming in our tech savvy world.

I blurbed this wonderful book as part of LitHub's monthly round-up of must-read books:

"I tore through Startup in two days. It could’ve been one, but I had to eat, sleep, and feed my cats—all normal activities that became frustrating distractions while reading this book. Written by a veteran culture editor, Startup satirizes and celebrates the current tech moment, entangling the ambitions of an app inventor with the lives of a young journalist and a struggling creative writer. Well-observed and told with a crackling wit, this debut is one of the best I’ve read so far this year."

http://lithub.com/15-books-to-read-this-april/

With thanks to the author and publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of this title.

I won't say I didn't enjoy Startup by Doree Shafrir, but it wasn't what I was expecting. Perhaps because I am not a tech world insider, I didn't find it "hilarious" as the description stated. It was interesting, but not really humorous. The characters were sporadically developed, and several (notably the men) felt surprisingly thin for the roles they played. Perhaps that was the joke - that they were just that shallow as people. It's a quick read, not at all challenging. While other reviewers referred to it as biting satire, I didn't care enough about the players or the stage to see any redeeming value to the satire on offer. Maybe I'm just not the right demographic (tech world workers in NYC?)?

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advanced copy of Doree Shafrir's novel, Startup, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- TakeOff, a New York based tech company, is poised to be the next big thing. Its founder, Mack, is externally confident and cocky, but he has secrets. Mack is desperate for funding, his company is on the brink of failure, and Isabel, a beautiful employee that he has casually slept with, has a new boyfriend. She is no longer interest in Mack. In a moment of desperation, Mack sends Isabel compromising pictures of himself, an action which creates gossip and jeopardizes his fragile startup. 

Downstairs, in the same building as Takeoff, is a newsroom, filled with desperate tech reporters, who depend on social media traffic to keep their jobs. Katya is a young journalist, who inadvertently lands a lead on the problems occurring at Takeoff. Her lead involves, Sabrina, who happens to both work at Takeoff, and who is the wife of Katya's boss, Dan. Dan and Sabrina are in their mid-thirties, struggling with both their marriage and keeping afloat working in a younger persons industry. Dan is hiding a secret crush that he has on Katya. Sabrina is hiding a massive debt that she has incurred from shopping. 

How long can these characters keep up their lies, before the lives implode? 

LIKE- Startup is a fun read. I have to admit that it also made me anxious. One of the major themes is the fear of missing out. For example, early in the novel, we see the characters struggling to keep up with their social media accounts, both with regard to adding personal content and staying current with others. This is even more extreme, when you realize that Katya's job depends on things like Twitter: it's not just personal, but it's her career.

We are introduced to both Mack and Katya, as they attend an early morning rave in Manhattan. The rave is designed to get the day started and rather than alcohol, the dancing/music is accompanied by juice drinks. Naturally, the characters have to instagram that they were at the rave, because why even go, if you don't share what you've done? If you don't document it, it doesn't matter. Shafrir nails her assessment of  the current state of our society and while my social media behavior is nowhere near as extreme as her characters, I've felt that anxiety of keeping up. It's a hamster wheel.

Also relatable, is the dynamic between Dan/ Sabrina vs their much younger co-workers. Dan and Sabrina are in their late 30's, yet next to their coworkers, they feel somewhat irrelevant or washed-up. They are the only characters with children, something their coworkers view as an aspiration for the distant future, which truthfully is only ten-fifteen years away. It's this dynamic that sets a rather desperate tone for both Sabrina and Dan. Dan looks to recapture his youth by going after Katya and Sabrina tries to compensate by buying trendy clothes. Neither of these are the answer of course, but they keep digging themselves into deeper holes. I don't ever feel that their coworkers are actively trying to make them feel less-than, more that it's a self-imposed category. 

Startup is funny, timely, and a cautionary tale. It has a wonderful women-power, feminist twist. Part of what drew me to her book is Shafrir's background as journalist and former writer at Buzzfeed. Shafrir's writing sparkles and she has created memorable characters.

DISLIKE- This is minor, but I wish that the Shafrir had gotten into the heads of the male characters more, given them more depth. By the end of the novel they came across as egotistical, pigs and for a story with so many layers, I felt she could have gone deeper here. 

RECOMMEND- Yes. My husband isn't much of a reader, but for the tech aspect and themes, I was even recommending Startup to him. Shafrir has a strong voice and she has a tight grasp of current topics. With the current technology and associated lingo, I think this novel will date very quickly, but for now, it's a trendy, on-point read. It will make you think twice about updating your social media accounts. Of course, I'm headed off to tell put out a blast that I read Startup.

A fun page turner! Will be buying this for my library and recommending often!