The Glitch: A Novel

The Glitch brought me out of my springtime reading slump. I kept reading passages aloud to my husband, and we would both giggle - as well as marvel - at how smart, absurd, and engaging the writing was. It was hard to put down, but then I deliberately slowed my pace at the end to remain in Ms. Cohen’s word web. I wish I could hire her to narrate my own inner voice.I found Ms. Stone’s quirks, flaws, and neurotic self-talk to be highly likable. She’s clearly not a character that inspires a bond with the reader, and her choices and attempts to craft her public persona are cringe-worthy. And that made me fall for her charms all the more.Ms. Cohen has produced a highly unique, tight, and clever work that defies genre classification. Perusing the reviews, it is clear how many different ways one could read the story. I suggest reading it with a full appreciation for the absurdities of modern life. It’s such a timely satire. I eagerly await her next book.

Long stretches of naval gazing by a woman obsessed with how amazing she is and how inferior everyone else in her life is. The character spends so much time marveling about her own above-human skills, she seems robotic, until she gleefully judges every single person around her. The plot description is very misleading about what this book is actually about, and it moves so slowly.

So, I finished the book. I really liked the technology premise and the female CEO angle. I own a small tech company and have three daughters. One is my Marketing Director. But there were paragraphs of this book that could be skipped over with no loss of storytelling. Many, many paragraphs. Any other comments I have would be spoilers.

It was not easy to engage with Shelly Stone, her drippy nose and detachment from her daughter. Her energy and obsessiveness drive her to perfecting herself and maintaining her Alpha CEO role. While plowing through the beginning of this novel, I came to appreciate the author’s satire and humor and became intrigued by the unique character she has created. Shelley’s high- tech skills and her ever present Conch contraption that snuggles over her ear, enables her to remotely oversee her household stable of around the clock surrogate parents and her company employees. She thinks nothing of suddenly flying at 4am to Malaysia when she is needed there. Her rigid schedule allows no time for relaxation and only limited contact with her husband and daughter who she is priming to follow in her footsteps. Her bonding to her infant son is mostly by remote surveillance. Shelly only begins to unwind when her double (who shares her name) as a teen enters her life. She begins to realize what she has been missing and a softer side of her emerges and she shows some compassion towards this other Shelly. She realizes she lives for her work and lacks an identity outside of it. When a major problem threatens to shut down her company she must choose between covering it up or leaving her job. Shelly weighs what the ethical thing to do is which makes her more humane in my mind. She contemplates what life with her family might be and starts life anew with them but leaves the reader wondering if she has the skills to take on these new roles. Within the author’s skillful writing are messages to us regarding the dangers of technology gone astray and out of control ambition.

I was hooked from the first page. It's a very enjoyable story to read, with a well developed and interesting protagonist. There is a delightful amount of creative writing bringing levity to how the protagonist dissects and problem solves each challenge she faces.It's true that this book does hit on the concepts of work-life balance and women striving for professional success. The main character is very entertaining, and perhaps it's because although she's intense, she's also relatable. She's epitomizing the behaviors the management and leadership experts recommend, in both her work and home life, and is constantly striving for the next level. She quirky in a sophisticated way. She overanalyzes and is self-critical, and her observations are often funny because they're true.If you require a major plot twist or a climactic conclusion, this may not be the book for you. I was so excited about how creative and well balanced the writing is and how much I enjoyed the main character that I almost wrote my review early but decided to wait to see if my assumption about the ending was validated. Validated it was, BUT I still enjoyed the book immensely and I do recommend it. I have recommended it to friends and I will be reading it again.