A review by betweentheshelves
The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu

adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

 Clementine Chang has landed her dream job on Mars with Dr. Marcella Lin, working on Artificial Intelligence. On her first day of work, she meets Dr. Lin’s AI assistant, Kye, who is modeled after humans. Clem is used to robots, but she can tell that there’s something different about Kye. Something that seems more human than most robots.

As Kye and Clem start to collaborate on a project, it’s clear that there is chemistry there. However, Dr. Lim isn’t happy about Kye’s new desire for independence and tries to interfere. But Kye also causes Clem to question everything she knows about AI. If Kye has emotions, where does that draw the line between AI and humans? And doesn’t that mean that Kye should be able to make his own choices?

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an advanced copy of The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu to review! Wendy Xu is a favorite graphic novel creator of mine, and I couldn’t wait to read this one. So happy that it lived up to all my expectations.

It feels like, in the last couple of years, there has been an insurgence in fiction that focuses on AI and robots and how they relate to humanity. Not to say that hasn’t existed before, but I’ve just noticed so much more of it recently. It’s such an interesting subject to explore, especially as we think about emotions and characterization and humanity in general.

The art in this book is breathtaking, as is to be expected from Wendy Xu. There are just some really gorgeous panels and pages, with such an interesting color palette. I loved the way Xu used the format and the colors to portray emotions, and to portray the changes that were happening in Kye throughout the book. It just worked so well.

The characters were also well-developed and rounded out, even some of the side characters. Personally, I think this could be a series, because I would totally keep reading about Kye and Clementine. They could even go on adventures in space! I would totally be down with reading that.

All in all, I absolutely loved this graphic novel, and I can’t wait for more people to read it come August.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings