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A review by madswhitaker
Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener
medium-paced
2.0
I was really excited to dive into this one and the first maybe 50 pages of this book were quite interesting, but it all just fizzles out and dies from there. I'm not exactly sure what Wiener wanted this book to be about, but there was no central plot, theme, message, or even a good conclusion to this time in her life. I felt that she really could've left the reader with something more to ponder on--some kind of moral message about these two jobs she held that were insignificant to the entire tech movement as a whole, but it didn't feel like she had any kind of stance. Even on actual events that happened in her life.
Besides that, the writing truly was not my cup of tea. It wasn't bad, it was just boring. So many lists trying to describe anything and everything in this book. From setting to characterization. It became exhausting to come across another long comma-separated, list of descriptors to say basically the same thing that was said before either about an office, the culture of a different tech company, or about another person in the industry.
The writing also felt incredibly unoriginal. Very bland sentences that could have come from a retail catalog and it wouldn't have felt out of place.
There was some intrigue in seeing behind the current of the tech boom in the early 2010's, and some incredibly relevant issues in the industry were brought up such as AI, app addiction, and algorithm ethics. This was a quick page though, and something that I felt would've been really interesting to dive into and linger on. Or even the fact that she worked at a data analytics company that was maybe sharing data unethically? I don't even think she had a stance on this!
I could go on for way too long. I didn't hate this book, I just don't think there was any reason for it to exist. Nothing to grasp onto, nothing to take away from it other than GitHub was a furry-friendly workplace I guess.
Two stars feels generous.
Besides that, the writing truly was not my cup of tea. It wasn't bad, it was just boring. So many lists trying to describe anything and everything in this book. From setting to characterization. It became exhausting to come across another long comma-separated, list of descriptors to say basically the same thing that was said before either about an office, the culture of a different tech company, or about another person in the industry.
The writing also felt incredibly unoriginal. Very bland sentences that could have come from a retail catalog and it wouldn't have felt out of place.
There was some intrigue in seeing behind the current of the tech boom in the early 2010's, and some incredibly relevant issues in the industry were brought up such as AI, app addiction, and algorithm ethics. This was a quick page though, and something that I felt would've been really interesting to dive into and linger on. Or even the fact that she worked at a data analytics company that was maybe sharing data unethically? I don't even think she had a stance on this!
I could go on for way too long. I didn't hate this book, I just don't think there was any reason for it to exist. Nothing to grasp onto, nothing to take away from it other than GitHub was a furry-friendly workplace I guess.
Two stars feels generous.