Reviews with content warning for Sexism - Annie Bot

Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

59 reviews

sweetkillerbee's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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mfrisk's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book is one I can tell I’ll think about long after I’ve read it.

Annie is an incredibly dynamic and complex character from the very beginning of this book. She is an AI robot owned by Doug who more and more you learn is an abusive asshole. This book gives us a unique glimpse at domestic abuse but told in a different way given that Annie is AI and is not quite human but has a capacity to heal, to learn, and shows immense growth as time goes on. The underlying discussion here that despite the abuse Annie is going through she is still seeking to make things work with Doug and jump through increasing hoops each day to try to make him happy and to attempt not to anger him.

The pacing of this book is a bit off for me and I wish we got to know more about Doug’s prior relationship but otherwise I feel like this book had a lot to say about mismatched power dynamics, abusive relationships, feminism, and gender based expectations. Highly recommend the read if you’re in the right headspace to tackle the more intense content listed in the trigger warnings. This is not an easy read but is a worthwhile one.

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

4.0

To me, Annie seemed like an autistic-coded character and I really related a lot. Specifically, her constant difficulty navigating the contradictory things that people say and trying to come up with a response that makes sense and is appropriate. There are lots of instances where people laugh or get angry at something she says when she was not at all trying to be funny or combative.

The abuse in the book seemed pretty realistic up until the end.

Mans goes to three couple's counseling sessions, turns off Annie's GPS, and expects her not to leave? That stretches credulity for me.

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witcheep's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

AI is a trend that fascinates both the writes of fiction and those of nonfiction. This book settles in the domain of questioning where the line between a human and a machine is drawn: how human-like can a machine be without actually being considered their own person with some (human) rights.

The book provides the focal pov of a Cuddle Bunny model of an Stella line AI sex robot called Annie, who has "computer smarts", as she puts it, but also social and emotional artificial intelligence that are constantly evolving. Annie cannot be distinguished from a human by a stranger, unless they are told otherwise.

"Stella Bot, reduce sensitivity to Doug's displeasure," she murmurs, but she is not in charge of her own settings. Her core does not recognize authority in her voice.

The bot is basically a human-like thiniking, feeling being but without any agency or authority over her own life or body. She is owned by her purchaser Doug, who designed how she should be created from discarded embryos and mechanical parts all the way from her appearance to her personality traits.

The morality of this dilemma of ownership vs. right to one's own personhood is the main conflict in the book, and is presented by the disturbed feelings it raises in Annie and those around her. As Annie evolves, she shifts from merely reflecting the thoughts and wishes of her owner to thinking by herself. When she achieves enough conseptual thinking and experience, she realizes

that the more she can think, the more her lack of freedom causes her unhappiness

. This seems cruel: how can anything this human-like be without any human rights, existing as mere possessions that is subject to every whim of the owner?

Besides this specuative issue of AI personhood, the book addresses multiple problems that are relevant in our contemporary reality. To name a few, there are presentations of domestic violence, emotional abuse, mental health issues, and domestic role expectations. The book is not an emotionally easy read throughout, but one that makes you think and reflect on the society we live in, besides acting as an imagining of a potential future as entertainment.

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immabehazzie's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Annie Bot is like a cousin to The Stepford Wives, which is a book that I love. It was utterly captivating from start to finish.

I had no idea what this story would really be about because the synopsis is a bit vague but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a good character study of autonomy, freedom, and emotional abuse in a relationship. It was rather surprising that a book about a robot that’s made for sex and companionship is a good example of what it is to humans.

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thebooklooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This entire book gave me the ick.

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restless's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-paced

4.0

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lonakadabra's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Annie is an AI Bot who lives with her owner - even though she's sentient she wants to be better for him, function better, do things better, she's mostly frustrated at herself. Until she isn't.

This was a frustrating read and I almost thought finishing it would leave me very angry until it didn't, which was super satisfying. So yeah, it's worth it.

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cristine's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I’m really torn with this one and keep fluctuating between a 3 and a 4. If you read this and accept it at surface value it’s not good and the amount of unnecessary sex scenes makes you roll your eyes. But if you read this and understand the depth and layers id the different themes explored (which I hope is what Greer was striving for) then it’s pretty darn good (still with a lot of unnecessary scenes and several inconsistencies. Thinking about the themes: women being demoralized to being used for cooking, raising children and sex but as robots that rich men could buy, emotional abuse, control, falling victim to the abuse mindset and having no control or understanding “who I am”, searching for freedom, finding identity, feeling isolated, being afraid to your true self, to name a few. Overall, I think this was delivered in a direct way that any critical thinker could understand the depth to this novel and ignore some of the holes. The ending was a bit anticlimactic and I really would’ve loved to know what happened next but I guess that’s for the reader’s imagination.

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rehannahb's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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