Please Report Your Bug Here is an interesting exploration of a fictionalized dating start-up company within Silicon Valley. Ethan Block is employee number one at DateDate, and his days are bogged down with sifting through photos for appropriateness and performing other mundane tasks. One day, he the app for himself and when clicking on his top match, he is suddenly and temporarily transported into a new, dreamlike world.

I enjoyed this story and liked getting a close-up look at what a start-up company is like at the very beginning. I wished there was some additional details about the different worlds, and the ending felt abrupt to me.

Okay so I was hoping this was a thriller that took place at a tech start up. But it was more a book that was suspenseful that focused on the tech startup world. The audio book was quality 10/10 but honestly this book was just not for me. I’m not a big tech person, I like books. So the idea of this book caught my eye. I mean who wouldn’t be interested in a dating app where you may escape to a different reality/world.

This book had my attention but I just didn’t connect with it. Soren is literally the worst. He can go away. (You wont understand this until you read the book).

If you like tech and sci-fi go ahead and check this one out. If you aren’t a person who loves the world of Silicon Valley and start-ups you should maybe rethink this book.

This book took me longer to read (listen to) than most audiobooks. There was a point in the middle to end of the book where it seemed like the book may start coming together and make a little more sense. It was odd though that it kind of just fizzled out. There wasn't really a wrap up of the book, yet it wasn't even a cliff hanger really, it literally just kind of ended.

The novel of today but also the novel of the future. The narration just suits this story so well and I can't wait for others to experience it.

Magic realism + Silicon Valley might be my literary catnip, because thus far I've loved all the novels that fuse these two elements together (such as novels from Robin Sloan). The constant tug of war between technology (and profitability) and human connection is always ripe for deep dive and examination, and Please Report Your Bug Here is another worthwhile entry to this niche category.

While there's a central mystery at hand, Josh Riedel took a more literary route in its storytelling, focusing on the mundane, intimate moments, rather than emphasizing on twists and reveals. There's also an evident air of authenticity throughout; San Francisco feels lived-in and vibrant, and the Californian tech world quirks and attitudes have me chuckling at their realism (and how ridiculous when observed from afar). If you're listening through audio, Torian Brackett's performance is a perfect fit for this story.

There are moments here and there where I felt the story is repeating the same beat once too many, but it is a minor complaint considering how much I enjoy the quiet, yet stylish telling. The novel referenced the film Lost in Translation at certain point, and it is actually also the perfect 'vibe check'—if you enjoyed the calming, melancholic wit of the said film, Please Report Your Bug Here will definitely resonate.

Thank you to NetGalley for the audio ARC.

I absolutely adored the premise of this book. An employee of a dating app discovers a glitch that is actually a portal to another world? Sign me up. Ethan lives in San Fransisco and this job is going to help him pay off his college debt. However, he finds more than he bargained for in the endless stream of reported photos he has to sort through. I wanted to love this so much, but I had several issues with overall execution.

The pacing was so slow, I felt like I was waiting the whole book for things to really pick up. It was a lot about just his mundane every day work life. And that's find but I never got invested in any of the characters either. I wanted to see so much more of the other worlds. Then the main plot behind the other world and it's development also felt lackluster. It seemed like things didn't really pick up and get interesting until the end. Loved, the concept but it just didn't work here because the plot moved to slow and there was little character depth. I listened to this audiobook and the narrator didn't do the book any favors.

Listened to the audiobook.

I received a free Advanced Reading Copy via NetGalley in exchange for a complete and honest review.

One of the best books I've read in a long while.

thank you netgalley for the audiobook!

interesting/creative sci-fi-esque concept and i def liked the writing/narration. can relate too because i have similar job experience, which made it funner to hear about. found it a little hard to fully engage but that might just be my issue w/ audiobooks vs attention span. might have to get a physical copy when it's released next month to try again !!

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me an ARC of Please Report Your Bug Here in exchange for an honest review.

Ethan Block is employee number one at DateDate, a hot new dating app. But his job isn’t glamorous. He works long days largely deleting inappropriate photos from the app. And he’s at the mercy of the app’s Founder, who seems far too interested in selling out to the Corporation (think an amalgamation of Facebook and Apple). And if that sale goes through, Ethan will have to adjust to the lifestyle change from working at a tiny startup to bring a small cog in an enormous machine.

Ethan Block is employee number one at DateDate, a hot new dating app. One day, for both work reasons and personal curiosity, he uses his access to DateDate to find his absolute top match, and when he clicks on her picture, something very strange happens. He feels as though he’s been transported to an empty field in another world. Afterwards, he begins to look into the bug, and he realizes he’s not the only person to experience this … feeling? Or did he actually travel somewhere else?

So, yeah, Please Report Your Bug Here is two very different stories brought together in one novel. The author, Josh Riedel, was employee number one at Instagram, so I assume his portrayals of the grind of working at a Silicon Valley startup, and then working at a large tech company—and the cutthroat competition between them—have a great deal of truth to them.

The other, more speculative sci-fi storyline raised some really interesting ideas—the relationship between technology and art (especially photography), the importance of human connection even though you can never truly know another person. But by the end of the novel I wasn’t sure I really understood what was happening with Portals, the other worlds, Ting, or Noma. It was either over my head or a bit muddled, and I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.

Finally, a word about the narrator, Torian Brackett. The main character Ethan has a millennial vibe that I thought Mr. Brackett presented very well. And I thought his voice for Noma captured her inscrutable distance. A few of the other male characters’ voices were a bit too similar, but I still thought the narration was good overall.

Please Report Your Bug Here is an ambitious debut novel, with some interesting ideas about people and their technology. In the end, I think it’s a bit of a mixed bag—and it’s definitely not “adrenaline-packed” as the marketing materials claim—but it’s certainly an original story.

P.S. I would have thought the author far too young, but I loved the reference to the Choose Your Own Adventure book Inside UFO 54-40. I loved those books as a kid, and I still remember the gimmick of this one: that the aliens are looking for a utopian planet called Ultima that is in the book, but cannot be reached by any set of choices. Ultima is just sitting there always out of reach, a surprisingly deep moral for a grade school book.

Please report your bug here- audiobook- was a great sci-fi look at a possible future. I liked the transportation to other worlds, the sci-fi was a little clunky in its explanation. I appreciate the commentary on our dependence on technology.

I’m certain huge chunks of this book went over my head as I tend to be a very literal person.

Ethan was an arts major that fell into the tech world. There he’s working on a start up dating app that’s growing rapidly, mostly by monitoring reported images.

One day he stumbles into a bug that momentarily transports him to another world. But it’s something he can’t recreate and thus is nervous to talk about it.

When the start up is acquired by the looming Corporation, Ethan learns more about the blip he experienced and just what it means for technology and life experiences.

First of all, I am so thankful for Josh Riedel and Henry Holt, but additionally towards Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for granting me Advanced Listener Access and a physical ARC of this highly-anticipated Sci-Fi read. I can't wait to garner some hype for this one, for I digested it in less than a day! Please Report Your Bug is set to hit shelves on January 17, 2023, and you don't want to miss out on this.

Ethan Block pours his whole life and livelihood into DateDate, a startup originating in the peak of Silicon Valley and slumming it to make it to the big leagues. DateDate's clueless founder is money-hungry and neglects his employees' needs and well-being, going into this uphill battle. DateDate brings on an additional Content Review specialist to keep business swiftly flowing forward, and that's how we come to know Norma. After Norma gets brought on board, things begin to take a weird, out-of-this-world route.

One day while Ethan is testing out the app, he gets transported into another world for a matter of seconds and sees a girl off in the distance, and then transplanted back to his cubicle desk. Fearing that nobody will believe his wild out-of-body experience, he keeps it to himself, choosing to tell Norma only. This occurrence will unlock a chain of events that neither he nor The Founder could have ever predicted, introducing a world of portal travel to the social media users of the world. Like falling dominoes, this book has cringey non-traditional work-life thematic that had me shuddering with my PTSD agency battles of time's past. Still, I so appreciate the Sci-Fi outlook that very well could be our future one day!