Reviews

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

maddieprav's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

rebeccaandreucci's review

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funny mysterious fast-paced

4.0

anxiousnachos's review against another edition

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4.0

This was such a weird and wacky little book, I do so love books where I can laugh this hard at the absurdity and pain of corporate culture.

latentprint's review against another edition

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5.0

Best book ever? Probably not. Hysterically funny and timely? 100%.


WORTH THE READ.

darlaslays's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I listened to this as an audiobook, which was very strange to follow at first. I thought I didn’t like the format, but I got oriented quickly when I was able to mentally visualize the text channels. It captivated me, and I had a fun time listening to it, with some feelings of existential dread here and there.

I only briefly used Slack (less than 2 weeks), so while I sort of knew how the channels worked, I had no context of what the “dusty-stick” emoji even looked like when I heard it over and over.

Speaking of emojis, dialogue including emojis were more challenging to visualize on an auditory level because I had to take an extra step mentally in distinguishing the specific implied meanings of each emoji while the speakers were communicating rapidly. I had to pause and rewind a few times in lieu of being able to take my time reading.

For instance: 👀 (eyes) could mean I see, what is this?, HUH?, you’ve piqued my interest, you and I know something that nobody else does. 
👍 (thumbs-up) could mean good, go ahead, like, yes, I approve. Those are all similar meanings but in a string of dialogue, it would sound like this: “I thumbs up how thumbs up of a time we had. Eyes. Is this place thumbs up? Thumbs up. I thumbs up it. Me too thumbs up. What are we doing after? Eyes.” I don’t remember the exact dialogue, but that’s sort of what would happen.

I wonder how different an experience of seeing the physical text would be, because it’s apparent that’s how the book was originally intended to be consumed.

However, the cast did a great job illustrating everything in their performances. Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book.

It does leave you with questions at the end, like:
What happened to Lydia?

Why couldn’t Tripp and Beverly speak normally at the end?

How exactly did Gerald get out of and then back into his body?


It’s a lot to think about because you don’t get clear answers, and I think that’s what’s fun about these kinds of stories. 

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rihtz's review against another edition

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4.0

The howling found me!
Bummer!!

erinlcrane's review against another edition

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3.0

3, 3.5 stars. This was a breeze to read and an entertaining time. I found the slack chatter very believable, which was probably harder to pull off than it seems!

aweeks0415's review

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funny mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

emily_gaynier's review against another edition

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5.0

So weird but so good
I don't recommend the audio book unless you have the physical or ebook copy in front of you

biorg's review against another edition

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3.0

gerald
You don't understand!
I’ve never seen a sunset Out Here before!
You don't understand!
***
A super fast and engaging read. The story didn't went where I wanted it to go in the end, i wanted the author to fully Commit, and there were a couple of loose ends that were dropped.... But idk man I still liked! The author managed to write convincing characters I wanted to root for in an experimental style.

Side note : just learned that slack is apparently a real app, lol what?