Elisabeth CohenRecensioni

I don't remember why I read this and I can't decide if it was a confusing and bizarre critique of capitalism or just a fever dream, but regardless, it had a lot of potential that it didn't live up to. It definitely isn't "chick lit" as it's categorized on Goodreads. I don't really know what it was. Humor? Science fiction? I think it would have been a cool novella if it skipped the first chapter and just included her kind of losing it. But also I don't really understand what happened and it's just confusing. Also, wtf is the point of Michelle? Or the lightning? Or the kidnapping? Or the factories? I'm just confused.

*I was provided a copy of the book by NetGalley; this did not influence my opinion, and all thoughts are my own.*

Confession time: it had been a few weeks between reading the blurb and picking up the book, so I wasn't sure what to expect. And then I got confused. Was it chick-lit? Humor? A mystery?

Nope. None of these fit, precisely. What it is, really, is subtle satire.

Shelley Stone is an over-the-top, super Type-A CEO who has double-speak and lingo down to a art form - although it more along the lines of a black-velvet clown painting than a Degas. I say this because Shelley is, in a word, intolerable. You will roll-your-eyes, shout at her obliviousness to her kids, her snobbery, and her complete lack of touch with most people's reality - and her business lingo double-speak that sounds like a parody of EVERY obnoxious one-sided business call you've been subjected to in a public place.

She is maddening, and drove me insane. And I think the bottom line to whether you enjoy this book - or not - is IF you can see this as satire and not simply as a bad stereotype of a highly exaggerated type-A millennial. Really, the genius is in how completely absurd Shelley is.

Cohen has, however, wound enough of a mystery in this that she had me turning pages - even as I wanted to smack Shelley. Who was this younger version of Shelley Stone? She couldn't really have been brought her from the past...so was this a trick? And what WAS happening with her project, the Conch? And - lets face it - Shelley really was such an awful person that she really could only improve in character.

So yes, I really hated Shelley at the start - and in the middle - but by the end I had made some peace with her. I've given the book three and a half stars because I honestly still don't know if I loved it, or if it was because she was such a train wreck of a character, or if I just needed to finish it to figure out what the heck was going on.

And that is some genius right there on its own.

Please note that I received this via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.

Ugh nope. I thought the premise of this one sounded so good! I loved the idea of a woman (Shelley Stone) meeting a younger version of her self. Maybe she would have a chance to change things up in her life. But nope, this book just floundered a lot for me. Probably because I don't know what this book was trying to be. It didn't make me laugh. There was some weirdness with Shelley and the nanny (like I think Shelley was attracted to her or something, so confused). And Shelley and her husband were odd, and I didn't really get their deal. This whole book made me feel like I had accidentally taking some mind altering drug. I kept saying, so would this be what it's like to read a book while high as hell?

"The Glitch" starts off with Shelley and her family (husband and two kids) on vacation in France. When their young daughter Nova (do not get me started on her full name, that was also weird) goes missing. Shelley is of course freaked, but when a random dude calls her up and says he has her kid, the whole book tips into weirdness central. I still don't get what that whole thing was about. I would have called a cop or whatever the name for a cop is in France. It just seemed like an odd way to hear about Shelley and her client who invented something called the Conch. No, I refuse to explain that to you. I want it out of my head.

The whole book just pings back and forth between Shelley and her hectic life and her meeting the younger version that she denies. I thought this would be more Freaky Friday or like that movie with Michael Keaton, Multiplicity, but nope.



I also didn't really care for Shelley. I don't know what was her deal, but she acted so unaffected by things I started to wonder if Cohen meant her to come across as possibly on the spectrum or what. I just felt baffled. Shelley has note cards on people, she talks to her children like they are peers at times which is odd.

I think that the book leaned too heavily into the sci-fi aspect of things. I just didn't care. Too many things kept happening for me to even figure out what the deal was.

There is zero development with other characters in this book so I wouldn't even bother with hoping there is something here besides Shelley that can intrigue you.

The ending had a forced resolution to me since I didn't believe it at all.

I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

My Review Of
The Glitch A Novel by Elisabeth Cohen

This was a fast read and well written but I was at odds with the main character, I just could not connect with adult Shelley Stone. I did however enjoy young and irresponsible young Shelley Stone. I enjoyed the Silicon Valley references about the whole super-power couple that are partners/co-parents etc. They do not allow their young daughters to play with dolls or wear pink in order to raise power girls. I definitely can appreciate the approach and it is a semi-accurate description of Silicon Valley. The plot of the story was okay, Shelley works for , basically runs Conch, a company that makes a small shell like earpiece that tells you what to do, makes suggestions to enhance your life. Shelley seemed so automated to me as a character that she actually seemed one dimensional. When things start going south for Shelley with Conch I found myself on team Shelley as I did want her to succeed, after all women leaders are important. I was impressed with the authors silicon valley tech talk/buzz words and had to laugh at Shelley's 3:30am routine of working out and getting caught up on emails. In the end it is a book about an overworked couple who are trying to succeed in parenting and their careers.This review was originally posted on My Fiction Obsession

Shelley Stone is certainly a unique character. She’s a very driven career woman. She has a great job, very high up, at a company called Conch. They have created the most of the moment tech accessory. It’s like a smart phone but to the nth degree. It seems like the most cutting edge product on the market.
Shelley’s job is her top priority. This is never more obvious than when her daughter goes missing. She’s on a trip with her husband and two children. Both Shelley and her husband Rafe are on business calls, at the beach. It takes them awhile to even notice their daughter is missing and when they do, Shelley I’d still reluctant to hang up her work call.

Is she an unlikable lead character? Actually, no. She’s not the best mom in the world but she’s a really interesting, amusing character.

One day, Shelley meets a woman that she is sure is actually her younger self. It’s hard to believe but this young woman knows many things that no one else should know.

She thinks maybe it is tied to the twenty year anniversary of the day she was struck by lightning on her 20th birthday. It’s a day that changed the course of Shelley’s life.

I loved the style of writing here. I can’t explain it but there’s something about the writing style that was just beautiful. I thought it was very well written.

By the end of the book, I had no idea where the story could be headed. No idea how it might resolve. It got pretty kooky. But I enjoyed the writing style so much that I was just totally onboard for the ride.

The first thing to note about The Glitch is the fact that none of it will be remotely amusing unless you have spent time in the corporate world. If you have not done so, you just won’t get the story. Granted, Shelley will still be absurd in her mannerisms and thought processes, but anyone who has ever sat through any sort of corporate training will get many a chuckle about her pretentiousness whereas those who have not had the luxury will not get the absurdity.

The second thing to note about The Glitch is that it is a satire. Think Jane Austen but for the C-suite set. On the surface, nothing is amiss. Shelley seems perfectly normal in her musings, aspirations, and dedication to the various roles in her life. But just like in Austen’s novels, the truth is not what is on the surface but what remains unspoken throughout the story.

The best part about The Glitch is how it takes all the corporate self-help advice, the buzz words and trends, the various training exercises, and psychological expertise and destroys it in the name of common sense. It is a bit like playing corporate bingo with Shelley as a human bingo card that already has every space blacked out. There is something delightful in seeing every single trend about open concepts, empowering your staff, work-life balance, collaboration, etc. modeled by one character.

The corporate world is not the only place to feel the bite of Ms. Cohen’s wit. She also does something similar with raising children and the competitive area it has become. Through Shelley, Ms. Cohen’s portrayal of parenting in the wealthy and mostly white world is a far cry from children being ripped away from their parents and put into detention centers, and it has nothing in common with parents who cannot afford to feed their children or struggle making ends meet. Whereas her business style is amusing, her parenting style, and that of her husband, is so extreme that it is a whole lot of pretentious and a wee bit embarrassing.

Just as Jane Austen is not for everyone, The Glitch is a novel for a subset of readers. While I would like to think the satire is so obvious that anyone can enjoy it, I suspect that is not the case and that only those with experience in management and business will truly enjoy it. The thing is we need a novel like The Glitch. We need it to reevaluate our priorities and to recognize the ridiculousness of certain corporate measures. We need it because to take the corporate world seriously is to fuel your frustration at a system that seems to only benefit the top one percent. We need it to be able to laugh in a world where it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find things about which to laugh. Thankfully, no matter how crazy the world gets, there are certain things in parenting and in corporate America which will not change, and The Glitch is there the mock it all.

On the generous side, I will say this book was fun and humorous, with a highly driven narrator who's able to reason herself to some very illogical places. On the other side, I found the narrator more than a bit annoying and something of a caricature of ambitious women. Shelly Stone, the leader of a Silicon Valley tech company, opens the book by loosing track of her toddler daughter, is oblivious to her equally ambitious but more reflective husband for much of the book, and displays an almost single-minded focus on her company's business challenges. One of the lessons of this book, of course, is that Shelly needs to work less and spend more time with her family. While the general themes are certainly drawn from the real world, they are taken to extremes here and I hope much of it is meant as humor (although if so, it wasn't nearly as funny as one would hope).

So, when I first heard about The Glitch, I was all like - Wow. What cool idea for a story! This is going to be awesome. I need to get my hands on this one! And then I read it, and I was all like - WTF did I just read? Did someone slip me drugs? Did I miss something?

Shelley is like one of those Steve Jobs-esque corporate tech CEO robots who is basically all work and zero play. Her company is called Conch, and is sort of like a Siri for everyday life that clips onto your ear. Even Steve jobs seems like a wuss compared to Shelley. She's stiff, and brusque and her marriage and friendships are more of business arrangements it seems, as well as having children (Nova and Blazer?!? ummm what?), she has ZERO social life - and she likes it all this way. In fact she thrives on it.

The story starts out with Nova going missing on the beach and her and her husband CASUALLY STROLL around on the beach looking for her while they are both ON THE PHONE taking conference calls. I cannot even believe people like this might exist. Then a "glitch" happens with the Conch product and weirdness ensues. I'm all for weird books. I don't base a books review on unlikeable characters. In fact Shelley is written PERFECTLY. Elisabeth Cohen is apparently a technical writer by trade and she shines at developing Shelley as a character. Her writing is SO smart, and sharp and I LOVE the way she writes. I'm giving a slight pass since it's her first novel because the words are there - and they are exquisite! They just need some finesse in arranging the story better. But the themes here all ALL over the place. Kidnapping? Corporate espionage? Time travel? Lightning? Weird romantic feeling for coworkers and nannies? Women's empowerment? Technology? Work/Life/Mom balance? I had enough trouble with being in Shelley's head with her ramblings and descriptions - thoroughly written, and passionately descriptive - but the story itself just fell flat.

And the ending, just really unsatisfying. And a bit unbelievable knowing how hardcore Shelley was about most things - It was like she just conceded and gave up? Which seemed so out of character.. There were several times I was like "No WAY this type A personality would let this chick in her house!" and "Why isn't she calling the cops!" It was like you knew so precisely who Shelley was by the incredible character development of how robotic and precise her actions would be and then - what? Huh? What just happened? I'm still just really confused.

I hate when this happens. I find out about a book that sounds so ridiculously awesome that i rush out to find it wherever I can immediately. The description when I first heard of the book had a question in it like "What would you do if you met your younger self?" I want to read THAT book. That's what I thought I was reading and where it was going, but it turned into this whole other story that went somewhere else entirely. There was so much promise and potential and I'm pretty bummed. It wasn't worth all the hype I've been hearing.

When Mad Men debuted I began watching the show and was pretty ticked off a few minutes in and my first reaction was to turn it off. But I stopped myself and thought, "Wait, perhaps the thing that's peeved you is there for a reason. Don't you want to know if there's more to the story?" I stayed and the pay off was worth it. I have to say, The Glitch was a bit in that same area for me. Shelley, our narrator, is initially not endearing, in fact, she's deeply off-putting. To the point that, her likability can only go up.

Shelley and Rafe are both doing the high-level job thing and they have two children, Nova (so named because they're innovators and Nova's a root word) and Blazer (no explanation on why the name but who is small enough that, in the first half of the book, he's often worn around by his parents & nanny making his name titter inducing). As we come into the story, they've misplaced Nova and are looking for her. Enter a stranger who has found her, and odd exchange with Shelley that makes one wonder if Nova was actually taken and finally enters a young woman who is so like the younger Shelley that Shelley is convinced the woman is her younger self. And then things start to get weird and start to unravel for Shelley at work and home.

The further along I advanced in the story, the more I enjoyed it and the more I pulled for Shelley to figure out what was going on with Michelle and Conch. It took until around 60-65% of the way into the story but the shift did occur.

While I never took to Shelley's style of being a parent or spouse, I definitely respected her decisions and her acknowledgement that she had made them and there were therefore tradeoffs. I had a Type A, high achiever father and she reminded me very much of him. It made for a complicated reading as I recognized and disliked some of Shelley's ways very much but Cohen, through Shelley and others here, gave me added insight as to what drives these people to the ends they chase so single-mindedly. The world needs all types.

I was quite stunned at some of the actions & non-actions taken by several characters:

[Cullen gives Enrique access to some of the code for Conch & is certain he can't do anything with it. Why?! Given the high level stakes of all this, it seemed to me, lunacy. Also frustrating, Shelley never mentions the strange occurrence of her interaction with Enrique to Cullen. I felt they should have closed that loop.

After Michelle's ruse is somewhat revealed, Shelley lets her into her home & leaves her there unsupervised & without telling Rafe anything about this woman. It's slightly less crazy that she didn't tell anyone at Conch about Shelley's ease of breaching security & that she was hired by people who expressly want to steal SportConch. The woman tried to extort her & has made it clear that she'll take a job for the highest bidder for ffs! And to top it all off, Michelle's cagey with the details of who she's working for and her actual name. Shelley investigates none of this and this chick goes off for ice cream with Shelley's family as Shelley heads out of the country on business. Who does this?!

Shelley didn't snag the business card from Michelle with that Malaysian address with the wave pattern when she was herself, going to Malaysia. Didn't even look it up. Ok, then. When she apparently doesn't have a neuron fire that she's seen it before when she's actually in Malaysia and presented with it at least twice, I admit, I side-eyed. And frowned. Michelle's resolution in the story, I just didn't buy or understand at all. Either I'm not trusting or forgiving enough or perhaps, I'm just too retributory.

Shelley was really surprised that her Conch had been switched. I was stunned by that because I was sure it had occurred (I thought by Enrique) so that it never crossed her mind was strange. Also disappointing. (hide spoiler)]

In the end, I quite liked how Shelley's work endeavors with Conch resolved. It felt complete and I was satisfied. I daresay, I liked her in those moments. I felt the resolution to her family and marriage were too instantaneous with no real resolution to their actual deeper problems. I needed she & Rafe to continue the real talk they'd begun earlier in the story. The Epilogue reads like it should be heart-warming, but I felt it unsatisfying. Cohen really didn't give it the attention to detail the Conch resolution received.

I enjoyed reading this and it didn't take long because when I had to put it down, I kept thinking about it and wanted to get back to reading. I highlighted some witty lines along with lines and passages that struck me as so uncomfortable and so real. I also give points for the eel scene. That'll stay with me for a bit. Also, everything at the factories in Malaysia. Still, I did feel there were a few things that brought it down for me (mentioned above). Shelley isn't the most likable character but I found her fascinating and worth reading about. Definitely recommended.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.