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A review by el_tuttle
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
5.0
The description alone was enough to intrigue me. I am a huge fan of both Never Let Me Go and My Dark Vanessa. I also have a particular interest in the ethical implications of human/AI romances. When asked for my favorite movie, my ex-husband once reported, "Anything in the genre where people have sex with robots." It wasn't the most flattering (or accurate) accusation, but it was close enough to reveal my deep seated affinity with the critique of humanity that fictional AI romances afford us.
That being said, I was nervous. Isn't the plot overdone? Haven't we seen enough lonely Dougs, weirdly molesting and bossing around their Annie Bots? Is this just bizarre Joaquin Phoenix fanfic by another name?
I figured the worst case is I would read a redundant plot and treat it as a light beach read.
No fucking way.
This story is wicked dark (in a subtle, psychological sense) and it completely exceeded expectations. Greer takes a novel approach in crafting the world in which autodidactic robots live alongside simpler models, encouraged to wander and to have potentially open relationships with their humans. Robots are imperfect, but with the capacity to learn from both human and non-human stimuli. While this world has some differences from our own (such as my dream career: a couples' therapist for human-robot pairings), the extent to which secrets change our programming is fundamentally human.
Our protagonist is Annie, a companion robot primarily designed to provide GFE to Doug, her volatile owner. He's a very particular man whose demands she can never quite meet, but ultimately training Annie to meet his unpredictable needs is the closest he seems able to get to loving someone. Early on, Annie keeps a secret from him which permanently alters the way she learns and how they interact. She becomes a more capable, creative machine, to the detriment of her function as the perfect girlfriend.
What I found most impressive is the depth of character development. Did Doug 95% resemble someone from my own history? Sure, that helped humanize him. But Greer perfectly balances his toxic, masculine need for power with his sad, incel-adjacent desire to be loved. He's not quite a narcissist in the clinical sense, but anyone who has resonated with the pop psych discussions about codependency will recognize the situation immediately. The accuracy of his character while we read through his companion robot's perspective made this a much more emotionally evocative read than I anticipated.
If I were only considering the quality of the prose (and that I wish the ending was drawn out in a little more detail), this might be closer to 4 stars. But because it was perfectly written for my interests and it is only a debut, I'm happy to round up. Thank you NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC, this is an absolute treasure.
P.S. This book might be my litmus test for friendship. If you fuck with this, add me.
That being said, I was nervous. Isn't the plot overdone? Haven't we seen enough lonely Dougs, weirdly molesting and bossing around their Annie Bots? Is this just bizarre Joaquin Phoenix fanfic by another name?
I figured the worst case is I would read a redundant plot and treat it as a light beach read.
No fucking way.
This story is wicked dark (in a subtle, psychological sense) and it completely exceeded expectations. Greer takes a novel approach in crafting the world in which autodidactic robots live alongside simpler models, encouraged to wander and to have potentially open relationships with their humans. Robots are imperfect, but with the capacity to learn from both human and non-human stimuli. While this world has some differences from our own (such as my dream career: a couples' therapist for human-robot pairings), the extent to which secrets change our programming is fundamentally human.
Our protagonist is Annie, a companion robot primarily designed to provide GFE to Doug, her volatile owner. He's a very particular man whose demands she can never quite meet, but ultimately training Annie to meet his unpredictable needs is the closest he seems able to get to loving someone. Early on, Annie keeps a secret from him which permanently alters the way she learns and how they interact. She becomes a more capable, creative machine, to the detriment of her function as the perfect girlfriend.
What I found most impressive is the depth of character development. Did Doug 95% resemble someone from my own history? Sure, that helped humanize him. But Greer perfectly balances his toxic, masculine need for power with his sad, incel-adjacent desire to be loved. He's not quite a narcissist in the clinical sense, but anyone who has resonated with the pop psych discussions about codependency will recognize the situation immediately. The accuracy of his character while we read through his companion robot's perspective made this a much more emotionally evocative read than I anticipated.
If I were only considering the quality of the prose (and that I wish the ending was drawn out in a little more detail), this might be closer to 4 stars. But because it was perfectly written for my interests and it is only a debut, I'm happy to round up. Thank you NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC, this is an absolute treasure.
P.S. This book might be my litmus test for friendship. If you fuck with this, add me.