SYNOPSIS

Mel Strickland works at a tech startup company called Hatch, offering tech support to all the brosef “Hatchlings” trying to get their startups up and running. She’s not thrilled with her job—and definitely not too happy getting talked down to all day by a bunch of disrespectful, egotistical frat boys. But even though she’d admit her life is missing a little excitement and challenge, she does appreciate the steady paycheck. It also helps that she’s just met Alex, one of the only Hatchlings who actually seems decent and normal…and possibly worth dating?

What Alex doesn’t know, and what she plans on telling him and everyone else never, is that she’s also just anonymously created a little app of her own called JerkAlert. The app allows women to post reviews of the weird men they’ve dated, all while linking back to the men’s original dating profiles. What starts as a joke after a bad date, quickly goes viral—and no one is more surprised at the app’s success than Mel. Now she’s torn between coming clean and telling the world she created it, or trying to keep it all a secret…and maybe see where a relationship with Alex goes.

MY REVIEW

There are parts of this book that I loved: the unique and relevant premise of the story, the strong female characters, the camaraderie among girlfriends, and the portrayal of women in tech as “hot” and not “nerdy” or awkward. Right from the start, this book had my attention and my respect for absolutely bringing the creativity. I genuinely thought the idea of JerkAlert was genius—rife with legal problems, sure, but genius.

But there were some things I didn’t like. The book could have been edited down. I didn’t need so much play-by-play tormented pontificating as Mel tried to figure out how to handle her dilemma. And I really wish the ending hadn’t been so neatly and abruptly wrapped up. The rest of the book had been so carefully developed (sometimes even too carefully…), it was a shame to feel rushed at the end.

Still, what a fun read. I loved the concept and the characters. This was a perfect novel to get lost in for a couple days.

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Big thank you to Graydon House and Net Galley for the ARC!