Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Annie Bot

Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

21 reviews

eviemayhem's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective fast-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? Yes

3.5

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adhesivedolphin's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I loved this book! Annie was immediately such an interesting and powerful lead. This book is full of trigger warnings for DV and connected issues of consent. It really explores the concept of abusive relationships in a setting where Annie literally has to obey him. It's an amazing expression of how sci-fi can be used to tell stories about life today. Beware the TW and stay safe!

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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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kt2e56's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense 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

Stunning. Will be really poignant but also difficult for anyone who’s ever been in an abusive relationship or has struggled with the anxiety of being a people pleaser. A fantastic (and horrifying) sci-fi book.

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lizalovereads's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.5

“He is the only star in their system, she realizes. he has no competition, no need to listen to Annie like she’s her own protagonist. Because she’s not. She has no outside separate life beyond his. They have no issue of imbalance between them because they have no question, ever, of who has complete power.”

I was really excited going into this book, but it left something to be desired. Though Greer tackled themes of ownership, humanity, emotional abuse, gender norms, casual racism, power dynamics, consent and agency, I don't feel that it added much to the conversation. I wanted it to be more bold. She did a good job with the character voice being believable as a robot, and with her development. But overall it became repetitive and the ending was lackluster. There were also some plot holes. The odd mix of literary and plot-based felt off kilter to me.

*also if unlikeable characters bother you then don’t read this because Doug is a grade A a-hole and that’s kinda the point!!

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ryinwonderland's review

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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

4.0

An interesting exploration of AI, of femininity, of humanity, of abusive relationships. Annie is a robot, owned by Doug, a manipulative, emotionally and verbally abusive man who gets off on having power and influence over Annie. Doug’s red flags can be seen from space. Annie may be an AI sexbot, but I still rooted for her the whole way through.

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vigil's review against another edition

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3.75

I think this book is really thoughtfully written, and I will definitely be reading more from this author. one of my favorite themes is intimacy, power / control and i think the thesis of this book is asking if it's possible to be truly intimate with someone who has control over you. definitely more of a literary than a sci-fi novel, so i would approach it with that in mind. what you get in the blurb is all the scifi there is. i think enjoyment of the novel really hinges upon keeping that in mind. don't expect in depth details about robotic programming, because that's not what the book is about.

this is such and uncomfortable read, and i wished death on doug every single page i'd say. he completely sucks in a very real almost banal way, and the constant refrain of

how good a boyfriend / owner he was (used interchangeably.) paralleled how that is often said of abusive men irl.

i'm not giving it 5 stars because of the improper pacing of the novel, especially in regards to the ending. i enjoyed it on a technicality, because i do think it rings as emotionally resonant for annie and the novel, but it happens far too quickly.

i did immediately notice the dynamic with cody, and how it immediately contrasts with doug, but they needed more page time to make her going to him at the end to feel believable. i can definitely see that as an ending, but the last they spoke he didn't recognize her as a human or a friend. and if she wanted to lean into that or not, either way it needed more work.

all together, i think this book needed arounf 50-75 more pages to round it out a bit more.

and poor delta :( it was an effective narrative choice, but it's still depressing.

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ndowen's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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juanat77's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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swell_gal's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

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

2.5

I love the concept of this book. I think the story was interesting.

The themes of grappling with abuse were very well written. My main issue came from Annie as a robot powered by a highly evolved AI-driven program. She just read as so human. I know this is supposed to be where most of the ethical dilemma comes from, but I wish we were given more indications that she’s a robot, even if that’s just at the beginning and fades as she gains more humanity. For example, she scans Doug and can gauge his displeasure on a scale of 1-5. She can set her libido anywhere from 1-10, but there are no other metrics that she uses to evaluate situations (other than one scene at the beginning where she is able to log the messes around the house, including the exact number of crumbs on the counter). These kinds of features were very interesting to hear about, but it would have been interesting if she could gauge pupil dilation, heart rate, sweat, etc to understand human emotion on a purely analytical level.

This leads me to my second qualm with the book. We hear about how Annie was switched into Autodidact mode, but I with we could have experienced that switch with Annie. Maybe when she first became autodidact she was using additional sensors to place Doug’s exact mood and adapt accordingly, but as she gained humanity these sensors became less sensitive and she had to start using her understanding of him to place his moods?

The last piece of this book that I struggled with was the dropped storylines. Annie felt jealous of Delta when Doug first got her, but she never mentions that to the therapist? The only time that Doug “cheats” on Annie is when Tina comes over at the very end? What about the entire Delta storyline? What was the deal with the young man who found Annie in the park? Was he a Zenith? The whole “learning to code” storyline was dropped only to be offered a sentence at the very end? Annie needed such frequent maintenance visits at the beginning of the book and at the end she hadn’t gone for multiple months and runs away without another visit planned?

I did not dislike this book as much as this review makes it sound. But I just felt like the Robot/human angle could have been so much more.

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