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!
Audiobook Review: Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
Forget Me Not
Author: Julie Soto
Narrators:
Callie Dalton
Teddy Hamilton
Published: July 11, 2023
Audiobook: 9 hours 15 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: November 9-14, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars
Book Description:
An ambitious wedding planner must work with her grumpy florist ex, whose heart she broke, on the most high-profile wedding of her career, in this spicy and emotional romance from popular fanfic author Julie Soto.
He loves me; he loves me not…
Ama Torres loves being a wedding planner. But with a mother who has been married more times than you can count on your fingers, Ama has decided that marriage is not the route for her. But weddings? Weddings are amazing. As a small business owner, she knows how to match her clients with the perfect vendor to give them the wedding of their dreams. Well, almost perfect…
Elliot hates being a florist, most of the time. When his father left him the flower shop, he considered it a burden, but he’s stuck with it. Just like how he’s stuck with the way he proposed to Ama, his main collaborator and girlfriend (or was she?) two years ago. But flowers have grown on him, just like Ama did. And flowers can’t run off and never speak to him again, like Ama did.
When Ama is hired to plan a celebrity wedding that will bring her business national exposure, there’s a catch: Elliot is already contracted to design the flowers. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up, not knowing their complicated history. Add in a meddling ex-boss, and a reality TV film crew documenting every step of the wedding prep, and Ama and Elliot’s hearts are not only in jeopardy again, but this time, their livelihoods are too.
Jessica’s Review:
This much I can say: I love the cover!
But can I please forget Forget Me Not? This one started as a buddy read with my friend Beccie but she ended up DNFing (did not finish) it at 53%. I made it through the audiobook, but it was not for me. What kept me going was all the wedding planning: I found that interesting and wanted to know what was going to happen on the big day. That was the only reason I kept listening.
Ama and Elliot are our narrators with Ama narrating present day and Elliot in the past, where it seemed like he still was! Neither of them was likeable. And Teddy Hamilton’s narration/ voice of Elliot just rubbed me the wrong way! It made Elliot even less likeable. There was also no chemistry between the two, it was all about hooking up: There was no romance here! And I’ll just say this, those sex scenes were just too much detail for me! I was skipping through the track during them. Apparently, I need ‘sweet romances’ and fun ‘rom com’/ ‘chick lit’.
All I really know about these two characters:
Elliot is grumpy and supposedly heartbroken (but again there was no romance, just sex!). Oh yeah, he also has flower tattoos all over his body which makes him hot.
Ama loves donuts to an extreme. An extreme danger: If you are allergic to peanut butter, why do you still buy peanut butter donuts? Answer: Because they are a top seller. Really?!?!?! She also has a former boss who kept showing up. Is she trying to sabotage Ama or help her?
I’m not going to say anymore about this one other than Beccie and I seem to be in the minority here. Or are we? We both had similar thoughts on the book. I kept her up to date on what happened since I finished it. Maybe we will have better luck with another buddy read at another time!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: The Sight by Melanie Golding
The Sight
Author: Melanie Golding
Narrator: Ella Lynch
Published: September 5, 2023
Audiobook: 9 Hours 53 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: September 11-15, 2023
Jessica’s Rating: 3 stars
Audiobook Description:
Look into her eyes—she can tell you how you’ll die . . .
As a child, Faith acquired the ability to see when and how people would die—a “gift” she neither wanted nor could get rid of.
After foreseeing a family tragedy and being ostracized, Faith learns to control her visions, and returns to perform in her family’s traveling carnival. But when an unruly customer attacks her, she has a vision in full view of a crowd.
She is banned from the carnival she loves—and loses her only source of income to support her dying mother. Desperate to support her mother and with only one friend standing by her, she sees no reason to continue hiding her ability and goes to dangerous lengths to earn money. But when she sees herself in a man’s future death, Faith must face her own fears of her powers and tune into her gift to fight against a future that would ruin her life—and end someone else’s.
With The Sight , celebrated author Melanie Golding delivers another suspense-driven masterpiece with unforgettable characters and an ending that will leave you stunned.
Jessica’s Review:
This was another novel that caught my attention with the book description, but wasn’t totally for me. It took way to long (at least halfway) for me to be really interested, and for the book to get moving. The Sight is extremely slow moving, it was almost painfully slow for me. But again, I was just curious enough to see what was going to happen and continued it.
We have Faith who can see people’s deaths. Forced out of her job at a carnival, she is made to do readings for people wanting to know how they die. Faith doesn’t know when these people will die, she just sees the death. She can guesstimate if it is soon or far off by the way the person appears in the vision. One day she sees one person’s death and that she is the one who killed that person. What are you to do with that kind of information when you see that?!?!From the setting and tone of the book you would have not thought it took place in present day! Until cell phones and You Tube are mentioned, I thought I was listening to a story that took place in the past. I listened to the audiobook and did like the narration.
The big twist that occurs happens right at the end, which was just too late to really save the story. When it happened, I was a little shocked and had to listen to that chapter again! I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything since I was listening to it for my commute to/from work. If I was interested in having a different perspective knowing the full story now, I might be tempted to read/listen again. And some readers might just do that! And knowing the ending twist does change the beginning half of the book, so it might not be as slow moving with a second read/listen!
Many thanks to the publisher for granting me a copy to listen to and review in my own time.
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK