Audiobook Review: Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Annie Bot
Author: Sierra Greer
Narrator: Jennifer Jill Araya
Published: March 19, 2024
Audiobook: 9 hours 31 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: April 22-26, 2024
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Book Description:
A powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control.
Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.
She’s learning, too.
Doug says he loves that Annie’s AI makes her seem more like a real woman, so Annie explores human traits such as curiosity, secrecy, and longing. But becoming more human also means becoming less perfect, and as Annie’s relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder: Does Doug really desire what he says he wants? And in such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?
Jessica’s Review:
Wow, Annnie Bot is a book that will make you think… A lot! It is Science Fiction that will one day become fact. It shows how AI can develop (I mean AI is getting a lot of attention now. James Cameron tried to warn us about AI: Skynet IS real and coming for us all! Beware of the Terminators!)
But seriously, this was a very good read. It was hard at times to remember that Annie is a robot, she seems so real: And the emotion she has! I kept reminding myself that this is a robot as the story progressed. Robots apparently can have ‘real’ feelings. She’s a ‘cuddle bunny’ robot (AKA robot sex toy and we do get a lot of human/ robot sex in this novel).
We see how their ‘relationship’ goes and what happens when Annie has to go in for ‘check ups’. This is an intriguing world Annie and her owner Doug live in. We get to go inside Annie’s ‘mind’ and ‘thoughts’ with the narration. We see her learn and gain more knowledge and, in some ways, become more human over the course of the novel.
This could definitely be a Dark Mirror episode! Except the ending would have to be darker. In some ways the ending was disappointing, give me more dark drama!! Give me some more thrills. There was nothing wrong with the ending, that’s just me and what I like: Give me all the thrills and suspense!
I also enjoyed the Jennifer Jill Araya’s narration. She did a very good job ‘bringing Annie to life’ for the reader.
This is a very feminist story, but not overly preachy. As previously stated, once you are done reading Annie Bot, you will be thinking about it afterwards.
Many thanks to the publisher for granting me a copy to listen to and review. I give it for solid stars! This is Sierra Greer’s debut novel and I look forward to see what she has coming in the future!