Member Reviews
‘The billionaire predators of Silicon Valley always get what they want. Now someone is giving them what they deserve’. The female characters in this book have been through rough times at the hands of the tech giants of Silicon Valley but now they are fighting back. A mystery, a commentary on females vs males in technology jobs and journalism, and, maybe, a look into our future.
Lou McCarthy has a very personal reason for ignoring all the rules, written and not, for a reporter to break a story accusing the chief technological officer of a Silicon Valley company of rape on the basis of an uncorroborated tip on the eve of a product launch guaranteed to send its stock soaring. Not to mention that Raum One will give the company more power over billions of lives than any one entity should possess. Lou's apartment - her tiny, shabby San Francisco studio - is in rubble, on ground purchased and leveled by Raum for its fancy new headquarters, But that alone wouldn't be enough to keep her relying on an unknown , informant when her digging reveals that sexual indiscretions are the least of the crimes going on at Raum. Wu's very public suicide leap at the big party thrown to celebrate the opening of Raum One forces Lou to keep following the sordid story, especially when one truth leads to another and despite the fact that the company will go to any length to cover up the most important truth of all - including killing her..
The story of 1414º by Paul Bradley was a roller coaster ride that I enjoyed immensely; it is fast-paced and topical. There were many insightful points in the story.
Book received for free through NetGalley
This book is fantastic. The characters and storyline were written amazingly and hooked me from the very start. A perfect read that I both wanted to finish in a day and savor over a month. Looking forward to future books.
4 stars
Oh, how I love it when an insider writes a book about what he knows. This had everything you could want about the bro code of the internet/silicon valley world. With all that is happening right now, it was the perfect read.
1414 tackles a lot of different things in a very small amount of pages! I was grateful that the author tried to make every page matter, so the novel rarely loses pace. It got better the more I read, and the author is definitely someone I'll be keeping an eye out for.
So many twists and turns in this book! At times I felt the book would never end, but I kept plodding through and it was well worth the wait until the end!
This book was a page turner from beginning to end. Things are not what they seem and will have you guessing until the end. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Meet Lou McCarthy, the take-no-prisoners kind of reporter who puts the truth before her own safety. Thus begins a thriller almost impossible to put down. Taking place in a San Francisco that is almost the day after tomorrow, Lou makes it her business to confront the techno-bro culture of Silicon Valley, the patriarchal element built on billionaire entitlement. "This was an industry built on the promise of limitless memory, by people who couldn't remember what happened last week." Journalist and commentator Paul Bradley Carr has acknowledged that inspiration for this story and its heroine came from a real situation involving a woman's experience in one of the larger firms. Here Carr, in his first work of fiction, employs as a mcguffin stand-in a sort of Fit-bit containing an algorithm that anticipates and is capable of fulfilling any desire. The heroes are in fact developing "[A]n algorithm that could make powerful men face the consequences of their behavior." Given that Carr employs a reporter's style, action moves rapidly, twists and dead ends, and so many inside jokes and present-day references that knowledge of cultural references was a great help. It is also ironic to read this in a week when a powerful man is brought down on the strength of the content of his emails. A warning that when you hit "send," be sure of what it is you are shooting off into the ether.
Lou is a journalist who prints a story that she believes came from a good source. When it is proven to be full of holes, she is let go from her job. She continues to follow up on her story and falls into a much bigger set up than she ever thought possible in Silicon Valley.
This is not my normal kind of book as I am technologically challenged, but Carr does a great job of making it so even I could get it. It was a good thriller and makes you stop and think.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.
This is an unusual and intriguing book. Mystery? Yes. Thriller? Yes. Strong woman main character? Yes. Sci-fi? Sort of. Disturbing to think it's a realistic scenario of the future? Definitely.
The writing is strong and the intrigue keeps the reader involved. A very timely novel.
I was excited to read this Silicon Valley thriller, since it had good reviews on Goodreads and on Netgalley. All in all, I felt it was tightly plotted, with excellent transitions from chapter to chapter. However I was on occasion thrown for a loop by caricatures of stereotypes - evil Saudi Arabian princes and a dodgy Chinese-accented 'doctor' supplying fake medications being some of the few. I feel that this novel could have benefited from a sensitivity reading.
Other than that, it was a fast-paced read that I still enjoyed, albeit for those moments.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an advance copy for an honest review.
Fantastic! Shines a light on the toxicity and power inherent in some big businesses and calls into question the ethics of responsibility when a person feels driven to suicide. Make sure you read the acknowledgments - the context is important here. Well written, well paced and challenging.
So timely. Wow! This was a lot of fun to read--a satiric thriller about the "brociopaths" in Silicon Valley whose only concern is to make money with no regard for how much damage their social media platforms wreak. It all sounds so-familiar. Self-driving cars that run over and kill people. Social media platforms that encourage hordes of amped-up rednecks to doxx outspoken women and use location services to hunt them down.
An almost washed-up San Francisco journalist publishes an unverified, too-good-to-be-true story on the eve of the IPO of a massive company--its founder has been charged with rape. She knows publishing it could mean the end of her career, but she can't resist. This sets her on a rather spectacular collision course with some of the richest and most entitled tech giants in the world and puts her in imminent peril.
I just felt like a good, up-to-the-minute story that I was in the mood for, and I think other people will be, too. It may be fiction, but it rings true.
1414º by Paul Bradley Carr is a very highly recommended unique and gripping mystery/thriller that takes on Silicon Valley billionaires.
Journalist Lou McCarthy is fearless in reporting the toxic truth surrounding the Silicon Valley billionaire bro-ciopaths who get away with all manner of criminal actions. Her latest article for the Bay Area Herald exposes the CTO of Raum, a private tech company, as a sexual predator who has assaulted young women for years. The same day her controversial expose' is published, there is an Raum event where the official announcement of the multi-billion dollar initial public offering will be made. What happens instead is that the CTO takes his life as does another man who was a subject of one of Lou's articles. Lou is blamed for their deaths, fired, and while running for her life is suddenly rescued by Helen Tyler, a powerful member of Raum’s crisis-management team, but so much more. The two begin an investigation together that points to a much deeper, meticulously projected series of events planned by a person who calls themselves Fate, and Fate has a meticulously crafted agenda in the works.
1414º features intelligent, strong, likable, self-assured, and diverse female protagonists. The characters are all depicted as believable individuals with strengths and flaws, although most of the male characters are antagonists or trolls, there are a few good men. Lou is an excellent character to carry the plot and is believable as a journalist whose passion is to investigate, dig deep, and seek out the truth. Even with their small part of the plot, Lou's mom and her friend Carol are awesome, tough women you would want to know.
This is an extraordinary, unique, complex well-written mystery that is engrossing from start to finish. It is both fast paced and satisfying. You will not be able to predict the ending, which is a wonderfully remarkable occurrence and encouraged me to continue reading late into the night. The actual mystery/thriller is strong, compelling, and unparalleled in the plot and characters. The final denouement was very satisfying.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Snafublishing.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, and Amazon.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e ARC of this book.
An interesting glimpse into the world of Silicon Valley which offers the real possibility that it might come true. Is this out future. After the first part, the plot moves right along. Interesting read.
3.5 stars
Exhilarating read. Suspenseful, intriguing, and hard to put down, The good old boys try bulling the females and the weak. Fantastic read. I would definitely recommend
This book is a real work of art. I was on the edge of my seat for much of it. The author has a way of connecting me to the characters emotionally. I love that. I can't wait to read his next book! I give it 5 stars and a strong recommendation!
This is a very exciting murder mystery set in Silicon Valley. There are so many intriguing twists and turns that kept me flipping pages non-stop. It’s fast paced and full of suspense. A most enjoyable read. *I received a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley and this is my honest review*
1414 degrees is the temperature that silicon burns, which makes it an apt title for a #metoo thriller set place in Silicon Valley. Who wouldn't want to watch it all burn when you hear what some of these guys have gotten away with? This is a smart and fun thriller that will leave you thinking, if only.