The campus novel is reimagined as a start-up fairy tale ... After some initial throat clearing, Taylor’s fast-paced writing captures the pressure of start-up culture ... Zoe, by contrast, is written too tidily to ever transcend her predicament, resulting in a narrative that seems to unintentionally mirror the double standard between men and women in STEM ... Still, Taylor conveys with confidence and precision the intricacies of how women in science are perceived.
Commanding ... Insightful and zeitgeisty ... Begins as an intriguing slow burn ... But the novel really picks up speed when the business, named Manna (as in manna from heaven), takes off ... delivers an incisive exploration of a cutthroat contemporary culture that’s produced some spectacular scams. Taylor’s vividly observed, often beautifully wrought close third-person storytelling lets readers in on the emotional lives of her protagonists. A Harvard graduate herself, she peers hard at gender politics and class insecurity amid the hothouse culture of elite academia in this more cutting cousin to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and The Startup Wife.
Sharp, insightful ... Taylor, a Harvard graduate, turns a razor-keen eye on the dynamics of a world-famous, high-pressure environment filled with young, ambitious students convinced they are (or should be) the best ... A blazing meditation on the pressure cooker of academia, the price of fame in the digital age, and how far is too far to go for a chance at corporeal—or scientific—immortality.
Provides an insider’s glimpse into the high-stakes Ivy League climate and the potentially devastating personal consequences for those caught up in ambition beyond their abilities ... The novel’s focus is the breakneck pace of Zoe and Jake’s success, leaving character development to play catch-up. This will interest readers who enjoy heady tales of academia and ambition or novels that delve into the underbelly of scam science.
Taylor shines in her intelligent debut ... Taylor thrills with her crackling and science-heavy depiction of the hothouse startup and its founders’ dizzying ascent into the spotlight. The character work is just as impressive ... After Zoe makes a shocking discovery that threatens to bring down their company, the plot ramps up, and readers will race through the pages to see what happens next. This is a winner.
A convincing portrayal of the hothouse collegiate environment in the sciences by an author with exciting potential ... There’s a great deal of science talk in Taylor’s debut; an afterword documents how far the author has gone to create a fascinating concept that is as close to real as possible ... the novel suffers from problems with pacing that undercut its emotional impact. The first half proceeds at a languorous rate, building the story from Zoe’s perspective, then hits an inflection point and retells the whole thing from Jack’s point of view, filling in his missing backstory. After returning to the climax, it races through a hasty endgame that is not as moving as it should be, and references to the Epic of Gilgamesh don’t help.
