The world of online dating doesn't stand a chance after this book. I wish inPerson was real. Reading this book was a rollercoaster of emotions I couldn't put down. I loved the dialogue, the characters (Whit will steal your heart) and the drama. But I think my favorite part was the fact I felt like all my feelings about online dating were explored here. The positives, the negatives, they were all stated and given equal merit, and it was so cool to see such a retrospective on a current topic.

So this a book which I could relate to a lot, being a software engineer myself. Being a woman in the tech industry is pretty tough, with a vastly male population. This book addressed that in a very real way. Though I work at a place where my opinions are valued, I certainly know a lot of what my female software engineer friends go through.
Though there are some technicalities which bugged me (the way the software and technical problems are described is pretty vague, sometimes not true at all), I imagine this would not be an issue since this is written for a general audience. The storyline is kind of predictable, and at times Mel’s snooping and doubting got a bit annoying, this is a good book to read when you’ve read a lot of heavy books in a row and you just want a book that relaxed you!

I liked it, but the plot fell a bit flat. I love contemporary romance but couldn't get into this one.

First of all, let me say that I really, really, REALLY wanted to love this book. A woman in STEM and knowing exactly what she’s doing without the help of a man? Sign me up. However, when I finished the last line, I found myself LIKING the story but found it also lacking.

I liked the character of Mel. She was determined, intelligent, and persevered whenever she was face-to-face with a challenge. My issue with Mel was that she never stood up for herself in a way that made me want to cheer and root for her. Allowing those men to speak to her at her work in such an abusive and hostile without pursuing any type of justice for her or any other woman in this day and age? That did not sit well with my soul. She just accepted it and kept waiting for her opportunity to come.

My other issue is her relationship with Alex. Although I have thought that they had the possibility of good chemistry, I felt that we were never given that meet cute moment between the two of them. Instead were told that she likes him and that he likes her. I definitely would’ve been more invested in their relationship if I had seen that first moment when Mel met Alex. Instead it felt like we were thrown in the middle of their relationship, and quite honestly I don’t understand why they liked each other.

Although I felt that this book did need More in character development and relationship development, I loved the fact that Mel had a strong group of friends, A group of women who supported her and encouraged her to be successful. There was no backstabbing best friend or “bad girl” competition. It was a group of women supporting each other and being successful while doing it. To be honest, I would’ve loved for the book to focus more on these friendships. That was the true love story of this book.

Although this is my first book with the author, I definitely will read more of her work in the future.

Swiping left on this one. How to Hack a Heartbreak seemed like the perfect chicklit rom-com but the main character's continuous anger toward men was distracting. Yes, we are women, hear us ROAR but don't do shit just to spite men. The overall premise of the book about a woman doing something in the tech world just as well as a man is something much needed but I don't think it was executed well. I will say I loved that the nitty gritty of the business side of social media was highlighted. Authors who make their main character 'nerdy' do get an extra star in my book though!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC of How to Hack a Heartbreak in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I’ve heard a lot about Kristin Rockaway’s latest novel and I was excited to dive right in! How to... will keep you entertained, make you laugh, and make you proud to be a woman (if you are one reading this). The storyline is pretty relevant and takes you through the online dating world and the trails and tribulations which go along with it.

Melanie, the main character is a strong lead - a woman coder in the world of men who are pretty demeaning and down right awful (minus her crush, Alex). The ensemble cast will have you feeling like you are right there hanging out with your girlfriends!

All in all, this is going to be a great summer hit! Perfect for beach reading! Enjoy!

Pros: A book about what it means to be a woman in the tech industry, and also a fairly accurate depiction of how it feels to be a typical millennial in an underpaying/overqualified for job. Con: The romance feels bland, some characters felt flat and only to serve as foils for Mel...and things work out just a little too perfectly? Can I believe that one woman codes this whole thing in a few nights? Only in a rom-com.

How to Hack a Heartbreak is a story for all the girls who have been sent an unsolicited dick pick, who’ve been on a bad date, or found out their new boyfriend was a player. Mel, after being stood up for a date, decides to create a website warning other women of the ‘jerks’ out there.
This was a good story with likeable, well-rounded characters. I enjoyed this story and liked that it was a bit different than a typical chick lit story.

Amazing story! Such a sweet read. really enjoyed it! Great read for anyone looking to find a great one to curl up with!

This book was so bland!!! I feel incredibly let down. I was hoping for a book about a girl obsessed with technology and falling in love, but the pacing and *emotions* felt completely lifeless. I wasn't able to emotionally invest in this at all.

Full review to come on my blog

Mel Strickland is tired of meeting men on the Flutr app who keep sending her dick pics or turn out to be just plain jerks. She takes matters into her own hands and creates an app JerkAlert as her way to help fellow women weed out the Jerks on Flutr. She starts to date Alex a guy who works at one of the starts in her job Hatch. Will she be able to tell him she is the one behind the app? Will the app launch her career?

A fun book and in a world where the dating world is online a very relatable book. I enjoyed reading this book and couldn’t stop reading it. Do yourself a favor and add it to your TBR pile.

Let's start with a personal note: I shuffled this to the top of my 'to read' pile after enduring my own heartbreak. Not being in the mood for the heavier fare on my shelf, How to Hack a Heartbreak was the perfect escapist novel. Its protagonist strikes the perfect balance of intelligent and feminine; she is a coder, guys-- get used to it. I liked that the book isn't all silly rom com or smutty/eye-rolling romance. There's a little bit of meat here, some unexpected and much appreciated depth, as prejudices in the tech startup world are addressed, in addition to the nature of online dating and living through digital avatars, rather than creating true human connections. I also liked that while the book does critique sexist and aggressively sexual men who prowl dating apps (and the world at large), it also doesn't let women go without any responsibility for their own actions (ie the 'burn book' that JerkAlert becomes). Some of the "*gasp* another dick pick on a dating app" is a bit unbelievable, as I feel like most women are acclimated to that at this point and wouldn't be so enraged, but hey, who am I to speak for everyone? Overall, it's a fun beach read.

Swipe left or swipe right?? Fluttr is the latest and greatest dating app. In seconds you decide if you want to match with someone or not. Mel Strickland has had a batch of bad dates and too many bad messages from the app to count. She may work a helpdesk fixing tech “geniuses” computers at Hatch, but she in fact can code herself. In a weekend she comes up with Jerkalert (.biz not .com) after one too many dick pics. This is a forum for women to post reviews on the men they met on Fluttr. It sounds like a great idea, but it quickly turns her life upside down.

Thankfully Mel had her girlfriends with her every step of the way. I loved how much they supported her throughout the entire story. And Mel…..she had depth. I hated her subway ride. I wanted to punch people at her work. I also wanted to sit her down and tell her to figure things out. She was just so human and so sweet.

I loved this book. From the beginning I really wanted to know how it ended but forced myself to not peek at the ending. It reminds me of Christina Lauren (Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating) or Sally Thorne (The Hating Game). Not only was it fully of heart, but also great characters.

I barreled through this book in a desperate attempt to find out what happens with the characters! While not being entirely realistic, there are parts of this story that are completely plausible. Kudos to the author for not specifically naming hook-up apps, the ambiguity will help the book age better as time goes on. I really enjoyed it!

I REALLY wanted to love this book. I really did. I am a woman in IT. I like to code. I love the idea of this book. This book missed the mark for me. The whole book comes across as too preachy. I am 100% a feminist and a girl trying to make a start in the tech industry, but this book beats you over the head. All men are bad. The IT industry is full of pervs and men who excuse that behavior. It’s simply not true. There are pervs out there. There are men willing to look the other way out there, absolutely.

First of all, Mel should’ve quit that job. She’s a girl who codes, the industry is booming. She could get a new job in no time. She’s working a bottom tier helpdesk gig when she should be working in application development or even web design. Her job is beneath her, she gets verbally abused every. dang. day. She does nothing to make it stop. It is in no way her fault, but she could take steps to make it stop. Her immediate supervisor is willing to look the other way, but why doesn’t she go to HR? Why doesn’t she go to the owner of the company? Why doesn’t she go above her boss’ head? I would! Nobody deserves to be talked to that way.

Alex is a mostly absent character. We don’t see anything from his point of view, and he features only peripherally. I can’t honestly say anything about his character, because I don’t know anything about his character. He apologizes a lot, and he is sweet, but distracted, when they are together. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

Honestly, the only thing I liked about this story was the site Mel designed. JerkAlert was an awesome idea. Everyone that has ever used a dating app would love that idea. For sure.

How to Hack a Heartbreak is a fun story. Mel works in the male driven world of computer coding and all that. These horrible men basically sexually harass and get away with it. Mel is fed up with her job and men. Some guy sends inappropriate pictures and she gets stood up. After hanging out drinking one night, she creates the JerkAlert app that women can use to warn others about disgusting men. Then it's a big hit, there's a guy involved, etc. It's a good story and it's funny and relatable. This app needs to be real. It would be huge. I liked Mel and her friends. I recommend if you like romcoms and such. Such a cute story! Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting novel. Although it takes us through Mel's journey of finding love with Alex, the romance really takes a backseat to what this story is really about : the difficulty of finding love in the 21st century through the internet. Mel works for a company that facilitates resources to individuals in search of a space to launch their startups. She's one of the few women in the company and she handles the computer problems. Of course she's met with a lot of sexist comments and behaviors from the men she is hired to help. I was happy to read that Mel fought back and did not accept this kind of behavior.
Unfortunately her experience with her father and her disappointing blind dates leaves her feeling jaded and with a mistrust of all men. This leads to a lot of insecure paranoia and it affects her relationship with Alex. She creates Jerkfree and that brings about its own issues. What I admired about Mel is that she had the guts to create an app that gave her a space to voice her experiences and although it did not have the outcome she expected she learned from it and created something better. The #getofftheinternet needs to be a real movement.
Thank you Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A fast, enjoyable read. I enjoyed the characters and the storyline very much. I found it quite hard to put this book down.

How to Hack a Heartbreak by Kristin Rockaway
Source: NetGalley and Graydon House
My Rating: 3/5 stars

I read this book in a single sitting which suggests I loved it and couldn’t put it down. However, that’s not exactly what happened. How to Hack a Heartbreak is one of those books where I find myself completely torn over whether I liked or disliked the read. Here’s the breakdown:

Whitney: Though a minor character in the book, Whitney has a HUGE personality that very much overshadowed nearly everyone else. While I am certainly not opposed to such a character, I am very much opposed to Whitney. She is loud, rude, obnoxious, brash, and though she does come through for her friend in the end, she is just hard to take and even harder to like.

The Hatchlings: WOW!! There isn’t a great deal of good to say about this group of first-class jerks! From the very beginning, the work environment that includes the Hatchlings is terribly toxic and doesn’t improve much over the course of the read. Since so much of the book takes place in this environment, I found it difficult to ever really be comfortable with the setting and many of the people in said environment.

The Man-Bashing: Holy crap is there a ton of man-bashing that happens in this book. While the cast of characters is predominately heterosexual female who have experienced some really awful dating events/situations, not every man in the world is that level of awful. Additionally, while a certain amount of man bashing is to be expected based on the characters experiences, I found myself often thinking, “What about the women out there who behave in the same way?” The bashing in this book is pretty relentless and is wholly one-sided.

Mel and Alex: Talk about doomed from the get-go! Mel is so traumatized by her past dating experiences that she doesn’t ever truly give Alex a fair shot. Mel is suspicious, untrusting, and willing to go to some very sketchy lengths to “prove” what she already “knows” about Alex. For Alex, much of his time with Mel is very confusing; he likes her, tells her he likes her but always seems to receive such mixed signals he has no hope of interpreting. What’s more, both Alex and Mel are so scared to be completely honest with themselves and one another that walk right into mutually assured destruction. Much of Mel and Alex’s time together is well and truly painful to “watch.”

The Bottom Line: How to Hack a Heartbreak has some great moments and, in the end all the truths are accepted and understood, and everything works out, but I’m just not sure it’s enough to convince me to really like this book. I think I wanted more out of the ADULTS in this book and simply got more too little, too late. So many of the ridiculous issues that arise in this story could have been completely avoided had the characters simply thought through their words and actions before speaking and/or acting. With all this being said, I did enjoy the ending: the adults finally decided to behave like adults, Mel and Alex get their business squared away, and some good things develop from the rubble of Mel’s life. As you can see, dear reader, my positives and my negatives tend to balance one another which leaves me not all sure if I liked this book or not.

This was a fun exploration of social media, gender disparities, 21st century ethics, and what it means to trust in a relationship. As a developer, I can say that while I don't encounter the kind of rampant sexism displayed in this book, everything about the tech environment was spot on--from the all-hands meetings to the Slack messaging. Although I don't encounter that level of sexism in my work environment (not that I encounter no sexism....), every one of the micro (and even macro) aggressions rang true, and all women will relate to having some of these encounters at some point or other. In this book, they're distilled down to make a broader point. And yes, I've even experienced the subway situation--and worse. So I enjoyed seeing how Mel dealt with these situations and how they caused her to grow and make decisions to empower herself and others. All of these things made Mel's reactions to the men who showed any interest in her plausible, and I was curious to see how things would turn out with the one man who seemed to defy expectations. I really loved watching her 2 apps come to life. It was fun to live vicariously as she barreled toward tech success.