How To Hack A Heartbreak by Kristin Rockaway
Swipe right for love. Swipe left for disaster. By day, Mel Strickland is an underemployed helpdesk tech at a startup incubator, Hatch, where she helps entitled brogrammers--"Hatchlings"--who can't even fix their own laptops, but are apparently the next wave of startup geniuses. And by night, she goes on bad dates with misbehaving dudes she's matched with on the ubiquitous dating app, Fluttr. But after one dick pic too many, Mel has had it. Using her brilliant coding skills, she designs an app of her own, one that allows users to log harrassers and abusers in online dating space. It's called JerkAlert, and it goes viral overnight. Mel is suddenly in way over her head. Worse still, her almost-boyfriend, the dreamy Alex Hernandez--the only non-douchey guy at Hatch--has no idea she's the brains behind the app. Soon, Mel is faced with a terrible choice: one that could destroy her career, love life, and friendships, or change her life forever.
A techie woman who has been burned too many times in the dating scene, creates an app meant to burn the men who actually deserve it.
Oh man, I really wanted to love this book. Before my life as a mom/book blogger extraordinaire, I worked in IT. This book was right up my alley but fell short.
Let's start with the simple fact that Mel needed to quit her job. I don't know if I'll ever get over this part of the plot. Why did she work there, being constantly harassed and belittled? I don't get it, I don't support the storyline. But maybe my real problem was with Mel. It was Mel that wouldn't quit. It was Mel that was always negative and then got a little bit of gumption but then felt bad about it. I just really didn't like her. She was kind of a downer. And her character flaw of being so wishy-washy didn't add to the drama, it simply added to my annoyance.Alex is our love interest. I use the term interest quite loosely. I really didn't have much interest in him. I didn't see the appeal. He was nice enough but kind of like a beige wall in an office building... it's nice that they tried to paint but it doesn't necessarily help the look of the room.Those are our main characters and I didn't care for either of them. REALLY had to push through to read this book in the end. Which is unfortunate because the premise was super promising.
So in the book, Mel designs an app called JerkAlert that basically flags people who are on multiple dating sites that are married, or send nudies. This was a phenomenal dating app idea. I loved it. I *thankfully* will never date again (high five for true love!) but if I was dating, I would download this app.
