Startup

A Novel

By: Doree Shafrir

Narrated by: Eliana Marianes

From veteran online journalist and BuzzFeed writer Doree Shafrir comes a hilarious debut novel that proves there are some dilemmas that no app can solve.

Mack McAllister has a $600 million idea. His mindfulness app, TakeOff, is already the hottest thing in tech, and he's about to launch a new and improved version that promises to bring investors running and may turn his brainchild into a $1 billion business - in startup parlance, an elusive unicorn.

Katya Pasternack is hungry for a scoop that will drive traffic. An ambitious young journalist at a gossipy tech blog, Katya knows that she needs more than another PR-friendly puff piece to make her the go-to byline for industry news.

Sabrina Choe Blum just wants to stay afloat. The exhausted mother of two and failed creative writer is trying to escape from her credit card debt and an inattentive husband - who also happens to be Katya's boss - as she rejoins a workforce that has gotten younger, hipper, and much more computer literate since she's been away.

Before the ink on Mack's latest round of funding is dry, an errant text message hints that he may be working a bit too closely for comfort with a young social media manager in his office. When Mack's bad behavior collides with Katya's search for a salacious post, Sabrina gets caught in the middle as TakeOff goes viral for all the wrong reasons. As the fallout from Mack's scandal engulfs the lower Manhattan office building where all three work, it's up to Katya and Sabrina to write the story the men in their lives would prefer remain untold.

An assured, observant debut from veteran online journalist Doree Shafrir, Startup is a sharp, hugely entertaining story of youth, ambition, love, money, and technology's inability to hack human nature.

©2017 Doree Shafrir (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Exacting, though not without empathy - Shafrir renders even the most infuriating of her characters with unexpected humanity - the novel is a page-turning pleasure that packs a punch. To call it expertly observed is an understatement." ( Kirkus)

"[A] deliciously detailed satire." (Jenny Comita, W Magazine)

"Don't buy this book. Don't open. Don't start reading it. Because if you do, I can assure you, you won't be able to put it down. I was hooked from the first page and found myself lost in a beautifully-written fiction that so succinctly echoes today's bizarre reality." (Nick Bilton, special correspondent, Vanity Fair, and author of Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal)

Awesome Read!

I loved the story! I listened to it while driving and it kept me engaged and intrigued the whole time! I really liked the twists and turns and the complex message at the core of it!

Can't stop listening!

This book is great. I love that I can relate to the subtle pop culture references. Great story.

Good book, not so good audio

I really enjoyed the story and couldn’t stop listening once I started. Only minus on this was the reader who spoke really fast. It would have been more enjoyable if it would have been read little bit slower pace. But nothing so bad that would have made me to stop listening and enjoying this awesome story. Can’t wait for Doree Shafrir’s new book to come out!

Love this book!

I bought this book a day ago and I couldn’t stop reading it!! I finished the last 2 hours of the book on my morning commute today. I can’t wait to tell my friends about it.

Doree is brilliant

This book is a quick and easy read that keeps your attention to the very end. Looking forward to her next novel!

Pronunciation issues

My biggest issue with this book was the narration. In a book about start up culture, the narrator pronounced the word “gif” as “jif”, which I couldn’t get past and returned the book.

Ultimately disappointing

This was an interesting beginning to a book perhaps, but it was way too shallow. Like an old style women's magazine submission, it kept you reading but revealed nothing but the obvious. It did serve to mimic the inaneness of modern thought processing. The reader was quite good but a bit too fast and breathless.

loved it!

great page Turner which is perfectly set up for a sequel, which I would eagerly await.

Good

Could be better but if you have some spare time to kill and nothing else to do, it will distract you.

Great writing and characters, narration and story leave a little to be desired.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The story was timely and entertaining, and the characters were interesting. The narrator talks way too fast. I had a hard time keeping up and it made me wish I had read the book rather than listened. The only thing I didn't like about the story was that it ended quite abruptly. I hope there will be a sequel to tie up the many loose ends.