Please Report Your Bug Here

A Novel

Formats and Prices

Format

Hardcover

Format:

Hardcover

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around January 17, 2023. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

“An unexpected, inventive, heartfelt riff on the workplace novel–startup realism with a multiverse twist.” –Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley

Introducing Josh Riedel’s adrenaline-packed debut novel about a dating app employee who discovers a glitch that transports him to other worlds

Once you sign an NDA it’s good for life. Meaning legally, I shouldn’t tell you this story. But I have to.

A college grad with the six-figure debt to prove it, Ethan Block views San Francisco as the place to be. Yet his job at hot new dating app DateDate is a far cry from what he envisioned. Instead of making the world a better place, he reviews flagged photo queues, overworked and stressed out. But that’s about to change.

Reeling from a breakup, Ethan decides to view his algorithmically matched soulmate on DateDate. He overrides the system and clicks on the profile. Then, he disappears. One minute, he’s in a windowless office, and the next, he’s in a field of endless grass, gasping for air. When Ethan snaps back to DateDate HQ, he’s convinced a coding issue caused the blip. Except for anyone to believe him, he’ll need evidence. As Ethan embarks on a wild goose chase, moving from dingy startup think tanks to Silicon Valley’s dominant tech conglomerate, it becomes clear that there’s more to DateDate than meets the eye. With the stakes rising, and a new world at risk, Ethan must choose who–and what–he believes in.

Adventurous and hypertimely, Please Report Your Bug Here is an inventive millennial coming-of-age story, a dark exploration of the corruption now synonymous with Big Tech, and, above all, a testament to the power of human connection in our digital era.

Excerpt

MISSION STATEMENT
INTERVIEW
DINNER AT THE FOUNDER’S
NOMA’S FIRST WEEK
RUMORS
ROLLER SKATERS
DISTURBANCES
SCOTCH WITH THE FOUNDER
MOUNTAINS AND OCEANS AND ENDLESS FIELDS
NOMA’S BEDROOM
ACQUISITION
VEGAS
2. Welcome to the Corporation
INTEGRATION
BOOTCAMP
HOLIDAY PARTY
THE WITCHING WEEK
POWERPOINT
THE FOUNDER’S MISTAKE
WHAT ELSE I HEARD IN THE SEASHELL
THE CORPORATION’S DISCOVERY
LA TAQUERIA
COLORADO HACKER
FAREWELL, FOUNDER
MARX MEADOW
REPORTER
UNKNOWN PASSENGER
APPROVAL
A BRIEF TRIP TO TOKYO
LOST IN PARK HYATT TOKYO
3. Other Worlds
WAR ROOM
GENERATOR
VACATIONS
RADIO SILENCE
EXPLORER
MOTELS
TRACKING NOMA
WAVES
HER RETURN
A SLICE WITH THE FOUNDER
NEW PATHS
THE FINAL TEST
DEPARTURE KIT
TWO ROLLS OF FILM
Copyright Notice

 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my agents, Ellen Levine and Martha Wydysh, and my editor, Ruby Rose Lee.

Thanks to the excellent team at Holt: Sarah Crichton, Amy Einhorn, Maggie Richards, Caitlin O’Shaughnessy, Jason Liebman, Alyssa Weinberg, Molly Bloom, Meryl Levavi, Laura Flavin, Catryn Silbersack, Christopher Sergio, and Gregg Kulick.

And to Joanne McNeil for her reporting on AOL in Lurking: How a Person Became a User.

I appreciate the support and encouragement from the community of writers at the University of Arizona’s MFA program and the early readers of this novel: Aurelie Sheehan, Manuel Muñoz, Charles Yu, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Ander Monson, Patrick Cline, Eshani Surya, Janet Towle, Matthew Baker, Rachel Khong, Anna Wiener, Alexandra Chang, Stephen Sparks, and Helen Phillips.

Thanks to Peter Rock and Nathalia King at Reed College for your support through the years.

Thanks to those who provided me with a place to write when I needed it most: Kate Bernheimer, in Tucson, Arizona; Jay Nelson and Rachel Kaye, in San Francisco, California; Amy and Katherine Silver, in Inverness, California; and Yaddo.

I’m grateful to my friends, my parents, my family.

And to Erin Price and our beloved hound dog, Moon.




On Sale
Jan 17, 2023
Page Count
288 pages
ISBN-13
9781250813794