Review of Anna Wiener's "Uncanny Valley"
- The Quiet Protagonist
- Aug 10, 2020
- 1 min read

Anna Wiener's "Uncanny Valley" provides a deep-dive into the universe of Silicon Valley startups. This intriguing world may at first seem familiar to the layperson due to its omnipresence in everyday social media interactions and popular culture references. Yet the reader is rapidly faced with an intricate ecosystem with its own sub-cultures, which is hard to grasp unless one fully experiences it. Notwithstanding, the author does a fantastic job in helping the reader make sense of this curious microcosm through her own eyes. She does so with elegant prose, impressive narrative rhythm and an incredibly refreshing self-deprecating sense of humor.
This was our book club's first time reading a Memoir and though all members agreed that the book was a page-turner, we did not know what to expect for the follow-up discussion. We certainly did not expect it to lead to such great conversations when unpacking the author's journey and the various critiques she makes about the start-up environment, hipster culture and its protagonists (including herself), as well as their wider impact on society.
Wiener is an excellent writer. Her style is fluid and punchy. Her socio-cultural observations are spot-on and the amusing yet precise and visual descriptions she provides of her environment, the peculiar social situations in which she finds herself, as well as the strange people she meets provide the reader both with laughs and an immersive insider’s experience.
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