Reviews with content warning for Torture - Annie Bot

I devoured this book. The content is so interesting, I'd describe it as Klara and the sun intercepted with the film, Her. Annie's cognition and development are fascinating and I could not put this book down. Highly recommend.

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katerinatroyanovich'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? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I am speechless after finishing Annie Bot. This is my first 5 star read of the year and WOW I know I made the right choice waiting to give out this rating because this blew the other books I’ve read out of the park. At first this is West World meets Barbie but it goes so much deeper. It ends as a beautiful but devastatingly honest portrait of womanhood and the shackles of the patriarchy. Be sure to check trigger warnings but otherwise this is a must read.

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vaykay's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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thatswhatshanread's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.5

It’s hard to describe how I feel about this novel. It was truly fascinating reading from the POV of a sentient, humanoid robot. It was absolutely maddening to read about said robot’s human owner, Doug, a trashcan of a man, but totally someone you know irl. Which is what made it so infuriating!! How men like Doug reduce women to serving their needs and desires. How women are all but taught (programmed, as it were) to please their male counterparts. It certainly sparked a lot of great contemplation, however theoretical, about ownership in the age of AI and increasing technological advances. I guess the point can be made that this book exists to possibly skew the path that the future holds for certain AI developments, but it may also exist to show how inevitable the future will be as it is in the book.

Was this story original? Yes. Was it empowering, hopeful feminist literature? Not really. While the ending did offer some payoff, a lot of the book frustrated me. Which, again, is maybe the point! So many thoughts about this book. Sierra Greer definitely debuted with an interesting one, that’s for sure.

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literaryintersections's review against another edition

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challenging dark fast-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? Yes

4.5

Read Annie Bot if you like a book that:
- is unputdownable (is that a word?)
- is under 250 pages
- will challenge your idea of what it means to be human
- will make your blood boil (fucking Doug!)

I got an arc of this from @marinerbooks because I was so intrigued but then never actually started it until @mackinstyle was like - Jess watch this review from @tellthebeees on TT and then read this book. And it was the best choice. This book was WILD, horrifying, at times really disturbing, and riveting. I blew through it because I needed to know what happens to Annie.

Annie is a robot made to give sexual pleasure to her owner. There are different kinds of bots (for cleaning, for caregiving, and for sex) and Annie was created for and is owned by Doug (🗑️🗑️🗑️🗑️). But then Annie becomes autodidactic, meaning she starts learning and and teaching herself, she has her own thoughts, and her ideas of the world, who she is, and what her purpose is start to become more intricate and complex. It asks the question “what does it mean to be human?”

What I loved about this book is how it made me think. Throughout this book Annie is dehumanized, because in the eyes of many of the characters Annie is a robot, she’s not human. But for me as a reader, she is 100% human. She has humanity. So everything done to her can be excused in the book because she’s a “machine”. But when you think of her as human??? Everything done to her is violent, horrifying, disgusting. Reducing someone or a group of people to “animals” or “less than human” means we as a society are better able to dismiss or disregard horrible atrocities done to them (think Chain-Gang All Stars). When reading this book you will be forced to think about what humanity means to you. And even if Annie is just a “machine”, does it make it any less horrible what is done to her?

There is also some interesting pieces about race and gender that I need more time to think about, and know, I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

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brea's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

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itsybitsygingie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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