The Developers, by Ben Woods, is at heart a comedy about a group of five twenty-somethings working together at an Internet company. Well, it tries to be a comedy, but falls short. This book follows the story of Katy, Matt, Kevin, Drew, and Sarina. Yet the characters blend into one another to the point that it really seems to be about two characters, MattKevinDrew and KatySarina. Woods tries to give these characters quirks and peculiarities, but with the exception of Kevin's addiction to fast food, they tend to overlap.

The main plot of the book is as follows: the company, known as "The Developers," is starting a new website that they believe will unify the town in which they live. The website will be like a town meeting hall, library, and market place rolled into one. As the website gains critical and commercial success, the developers have to deal with their newfound success while juggling their overlapping home and work lives. The book touches on some interesting issues, particularly when the developers are contacted by the U.S. government about developing a national "Super Information Portal" that would force internet users not only to connect to the internet via government networks, but to willingly have their internet usage tracked by the government. In short, the developers have to wrestle with the possibility that the technology that they invented will be used by the government to keep tabs on virtually every person living in the United States. Though this is a work of a fiction, it brings up the question: how accessible is private information, and is government control over something as open as the Internet plausible? With the recent changes on websites such as Facebook, one can literally obtain a mass of information on a person in seconds. Though weak in places, The Developers does ask questions on the current mind frame of young America.

Although the book has a good core plot, Woods wanders too often from the philosophical aspects of it, focusing instead on minor character developments that too often go nowhere. While the romance between Kevin and his sister's best friend is, and there is no other word for it, cute, it doesn't go anywhere, leaving the reader wondering why they just spent a page and a half reading Kevin's inner monologue as he is stuck in traffic. The weak points of this story all seem to revolve around the romantic lives of the characters, and particularly upon the less interesting ones. Though there is a very funny scene in which Drew's wife flashes him at a bingo game for his birthday, she doesn't show up again in the book except as filler. Of all the characters, Drew is the one who is focused on the least, yet he ends up being the most likeable out of the five leads. In fact, the only parts of the book that I found myself enjoying seemed to revolve around Drew, in particular the chapters in which he volunteers as the caller for his church's bingo night. That's right, the most interesting parts of this book involve the most popular game for the over-seventy crowd, perhaps because the memorable, yet minor characters seem to make appearances there. The two stand-outs have to be Ethel, with her penchant for calling people "Bee-yatch", or the elderly man who, in a confusion involving a black-out, stages an all-out fight with a trash can.

Though Woods puts up a valiant effort with his first attempt at a full-fledged novel, The Developers falls short of its potential, and instead of grabbing the reader's interest, the novel comes up empty-handed.