I feel like I should give the author credit. I could not put down this book after I got into it around page 30. Reading became fun again as I devoured the book. Probably because it was a simple read with a simple plot. I think the author thought he was making some quirky book that was party mystery, part satire on Silicon Valley tech culture. But every tech reference came off as pretentious. The story had no real tension: the plot simple laid out the steps this rag tag trio took to crack the code. The plot seemed to want to have the best of both worlds, trying to be both grounded in reality and magical at the same time.