Startup cover art

Startup

A Novel

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Startup

By: Doree Shafrir
Narrated by: Eliana Marianes
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

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
Coming of Age Family Life Fiction Satire Women's Fiction Comedy Witty Funny Veteran
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Emails from Heaven cover art
Domestic Violets cover art
This Could Hurt cover art
The Follower cover art
Ruritanian Rogues: Volumes 1-3 cover art
Sophia of Silicon Valley cover art
Limelight cover art
Party Girl cover art
All That You Leave Behind cover art
Thirty-Two Going on Spinster cover art
The Silmarillion cover art
Text Me on Tuesday cover art
Perfect on Paper cover art
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) cover art
Artemis cover art
L.A. Candy cover art

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)

What listeners say about Startup

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing must listen

Really is a top notch listen, the audiobook voice acting adds a lot of extra depth to the story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Awful writing, racist performance

I’m not sure if this audiobook is a joke or not. The accents given by the narrator are nothing short of racist. They’re embarrassing stereotypes straight out of a blackface act. The novel itself is weak. The characters are flat. The story lacks clear motivation or any real arc. The description is amateurish. How did this awful novel get published? Don’t waste your time with this.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!