Asha is brilliant and is working on a way to give artificial intelligence human empathy skills when she re-meets her high school crush, Cyrus, realizes he's also in love with her and they get married. The whirlwind romance leads to a whirlwind startup when she tells him about her work and realizes she could use some of it to create something new with him, described by some as something like a 'human spirit guide.' He creates custom rituals for non-religious people, helping them mark significant moments in time (births, deaths, marriages) in non-traditional ways. So Asha creates the platform, pulling from Cyrus' mind to build a custom algorithm that will spit out recommendations for a non-traditional event based on users' desires and existing beliefs. The third person at the helm is Jules, Cyrus' best friend.

Not only is the app intriguing to the right people (the team of three is adopted by an ultra-exclusive startup called Utopia and backed by a deep-pocketed investor), but when it launches, it's popular - like, really popular. And before Asha knows it, everything has changed and her happy marriage-turned-partnership is experiencing just a few bumps in the road as she struggles with her place in the company and the relationship.

This books is an afternoon read, super cute and fun and (almost annoyingly) timely with mention of COVID at the end (although, mentioned as the start of the apocalypse which tbh was not entirely appreciated). I'd recommend it as a cottage read for people interested in the world of tech (lots of fun jargon used) looking for something quick.

Even from the beginning, I wasn’t sure where this relationship is going to go but. It seemed like it was bound to have issues with or without this startup company. First of all, they both hardly knew each other. Asha holds a strongly romanticized view of Cyrus, as she had a high school crush on him, but he had never spoken to her. Right away it he seemed like he had a lot of emotional baggage with his mom dying and him running off whenever he can’t deal with his emotions. Him and his friend Jules have nothing going for them other than the fact that Jules is rich. Second, they were seeing each other for like two months before they ran off and got married in secret. Why the rush? Why was it a secret? I saw a monster emerging in Cyrus and I didn’t like it, although I didn’t really like him when he was the first version of Cyrus, either. I’m not sure how I feel about all the tech talk, but the concept was interesting and I liked the writing style. As an accountant, it also irritated me that they were trying to build a business, but literally no one had thought of anything they might encountered.

This was overall a slow journey for me. I’m glad there were no detailed descriptions of coding or whatever it is that you do to make apps. Although most of the story is based in the office or around boardroom tables, it somehow managed not to be boring.

I liked Asha in the beginning, but towards the end she started to irritate me with how she let herself get walked over at every possible turn. I was rooting for the relationship to fail the whole time; Cyrus is the type of person I would have no liking for. He was just this woo-woo, selfish, self-centered POS. I steadily began to dislike every character in the book except for Destiny and Gaby.

Some of the tech ideas at Utopia were pretty interesting. The No Touch software, anyone? I can see that becoming a thing in the very near future.

I’m left feeling satisfied with how it ended. It was a bit of a slow ride in points, my frustration with the characters grew, but the ending was (almost) worth the frustration. I liked the integration with the real-life pandemic situation. While this book frustrated me in places (I hate when people don’t stand up for themselves), the aspects of the responsibility of tech and AI and the role technology will have in the next phase of the world was interesting.

The real burning question is though, why don’t people take off their shoes in other people’s houses in the States? Outside shoes are disgusting and dirty; why is it not considered rude to go into someone’s house without shoes???

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.