Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Several People Are Typing

I just finished this book. My first thoughts are that the story was inventive. It was a very fast read too. It’s funny but probably not all that memorable. Great book to help boost your count.

Gerald works in a PR firm and has accidentally uploaded himself to the company slack program. There’s some great banter but when

slack’s help bot takes over Gerald’s body

the story takes a weird turn. There are some sort of rape light themes that only a man would think is ok to write about.

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skyegbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

I liked the unique fomat, I have never seen a book quite like it however, it did get quite confusing when it came to deciphering who was who and why they are relevant in the beginning. The constant use of spelt-out emoji names in the middle of sentances made some things impossible to understand in my opinion.

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bluberrybooks's review against another edition

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funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.5

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waywardnova's review against another edition

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ok new review as of 6/20/2023:
when i read this, i had a blast with it. but upon further reflection and a friend's review, i guess i wasn't paying close enough attention to realize the inciting incident of the romance had uhhhhh a bit of a full consent issue. dubious enough that it puts a bit of a damper on the whole thing for me. so i am,, rescinding my recommendation of it and moving along taking the author in good faith

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tigger89's review against another edition

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funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

While this isn't high literature by any means, I found it to be an enjoyable, fast-paced satire of both the workplace and the human condition. I will say upfront that, if you're looking for a logical resolution, you won't find one here. Nothing is really explained with regard to the main hook, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth coming along on the trip. And a trip it is, with some of the logs being downright bizarre. My takeaway? Corporate capitalism is driving us insane, and we all need a vacation before we devolve to communicating solely via mangled emojis.

The main obstacle most readers would have engaging with this story is the way its told, in chat log form. You don't have to know Slack to understand the format. I've never used Slack myself, but if you understand Discord(#channels and DMs/private chats) then you'll be able to understand this. The book's strongest point was how well it executed this technique, with each character managing to be distinct despite only existing in the context of chat logs. I was particularly appreciative of the way the author gendered all of the characters near the start, by having a character request access to the #gents-only channel. It's hard to subtly slip pronouns into a pure dialogue situation, and I thought that was a clever solution!

I don't want to nitpick the plot too much because this wasn't really that kind of book. It's designed to play a little fast and loose with the logic. But there was one thing, a moral rather than a logical issue, that bothered me.

Toward the end of the book, a character knowingly has sex with a person whose body is currently inhabited by another consciousness, without seeking consent from the original owner of the body.

This isn't depicted as a violation and all parties wind up being cool with it, but I can't tell if it was a case of the characters being down with whatever or if the consent issue wasn't considered a problem by the author. Because of the unique format of the story I could see it going either way, because there's no good way to address it in-narrative if the characters aren't going to say it out loud to each other, right? So that was a thing that happened. If it'll bother you, brace for it, and I guess come to your own conclusion about what the author might have intended there.

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katebrownreads's review against another edition

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3.5

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