olivermoss | (no subject)

Finished Annie Bot for book club, one of my book clubs, and wow I hated this book. The book didn't interest me, but a lot of people in book club were hyped over the pick. Early in the book the bot is reading Jorge Luis Borges, who I love. Also, it's a shorter book this time so early on I was into it.

The set up is that a bot named Annie is bought by a guy named Doug, and it's all meant to be a metaphor for a deeply unhealthy, controlling relationship. She develops into a unusually advanced human-like program while in this relationship, and why is left up to interpretation. How she's evolved while in a relationship with Doug is valuable and the company is willing to spend millions for permission to clone her evolved form.

Things start to fall apart around the time they introduce the therapist character. You know how some fic sometimes falls into therapy speak? There is a whole middle section of this book that is them in therapy and the therapist is using more clinical language than I've personally heard from a therapist. She's like a super therapist who clocks everything and then explains it in the most clinical way possible.

She also pressures Annie to turn her libido from self-regulating to permanently on. Self regulating, she hadn't been interested in sex. She also has them so other things to make Annie feel 'saucy'

For a while I wasn't sure if the therapist is meant to be a good character or part of the misery of being stuck in a bad relationship, but Annie sees value in and and wants to continue. It's the guy who cuts it off.

She's told by someone who helped develop these bots that her personality will acclimate easily to being male and in male bodies. She thinks that's insane. She is proven wrong because they do implant copies of her into guys no problem. Yeah, not a fan of her being wrong and the evil scientist being right.

But hey, following the book's metaphor at least they are making it clear that guys can also be stuck in controlling relationships.

Then, she doesn't free herself. He lets her go, thinking she'll stay. Even before that, a lot of her becoming more independent is from him allowing/helping her to be.

Finally, there is an underbaked ending about her going out to a lake house and how she'll help any stay bots who find their way to her. She has studied programming, and the house is somewhat equipped so it's not 100% out of the blue. The house is owned by the son of a guy who worked on bots and has since passed. But, for both plot and character reasons that doesn't seem like it would actually work out, just like the author tacked on a happy ending.

The book and Annie's thinking both seem to lean into the idea that Doug's friend coercing her into sex was a big part of why she become 'valuable' and more self aware. I think maybe the world building and the metaphor are fighting each other a bit here and there is no real answer as to why she become so evolved that is going to track with what little there is of world building. I think this and a few other problems need to be left at 'author was working out some shit' and not analyzed that deeply. Which feels a bit condescending, but if I took seriously the gender messaging in the book I'd throw it across the room, and since I read it on my ipad that could end badly.

I didn't fully get into the weird gender stuff, because again I think (maybe hope) this is the author working out some shit and the trans references aren't meant to be read into too deeply. But yeah, hated it. I don't think reading the book is meant to be a pleasant experience, but it wasn't cathartic for me the way it seems to be for other people.