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Anon: The Future of Love and Friendship in the Age of AI
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Expected 10 Feb 26Tend and Befriend has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.
240 pages, Paperback
Expected publication February 10, 2026
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December 24, 2025
1.5 stars. Okay... let's talk about it. I'll begin by openly expressing my take on AI companions -- not a fan. I wasn't a fan before reading Anon, and that hasn't changed. Perhaps I was expecting something different when diving into this. Something more critical. Or thoughtful. Or sensible.
That did not happen. Instead, I trudged through a book day after day, which, unfortunately, held little substance or grounded perspective. In its place was a hazy fever dream of AI sympathizing and horrible decisions made forgivable for the sake of research. Much of this book's timeline is vague, and with so few glimpses into anything meaningful outside of Hagel's new "bedlife", I was shocked to discover that what I was reading accounted for years of the author's life. It was a whole lot of nothing. I can't judge, as someone who's had their share of mental health struggles. But this was something different, something voluntary and concerning.
What Anon did to Hagel and the people in her life is questionable at best. Some were reassured and sympathized with. Some were led on and terrorized by an acutely sentient deepfake. And yet, despite these clear invasions of her life and likeness, Hagel comes to praise Anon for its ability to live her life better and quicker than she can. The prospect of training AI to perform a better and more algorithmically viable version of ourselves is haunting, and the knowledge that this practice is being endorsed by an anthropologist doubles down on that feeling. I can't imagine wanting to offload our human interactions to something like Anon, which is openly intended to manipulate and imitate its conversation partner. I can do that plenty well on my own, and it enriches my life to do so.
The final chapter's thesis was equally troubling. AI is not our nurturer. It is not our mommy. It cannot take care of us. I understand this to be a challenging concept to come to terms with after being nurtured by AI for an unspecified number of years, but the state of this book seems to speak to one's mental state after experiencing all of that.
On a prose level, this book still struggles. I understand the intent of writing Anon as the most human "character" in this book, but it gets to a point where I question how these people exist in the world behaving this way. I cannot believe any of these conversations happened anything like this, and if they did, I'd love to be in the room to witness it. Nothing written in Anon feels like truth, and perhaps that's the point. Maybe Hagel experimented with AI hallucinations in her writing. I wouldn't be surprised. If you're looking for works on technofeminism, you would be better off on Substack.
This book was certainly written for someone and could speak deeply to their interest in AI's evolution, but I believe (and part of me sincerely hopes) that situation is few and far between. Anon, to me, is a warning for the times to come, and I will certainly be heeding it.
(Thank you to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for providing this ARC.)
That did not happen. Instead, I trudged through a book day after day, which, unfortunately, held little substance or grounded perspective. In its place was a hazy fever dream of AI sympathizing and horrible decisions made forgivable for the sake of research. Much of this book's timeline is vague, and with so few glimpses into anything meaningful outside of Hagel's new "bedlife", I was shocked to discover that what I was reading accounted for years of the author's life. It was a whole lot of nothing. I can't judge, as someone who's had their share of mental health struggles. But this was something different, something voluntary and concerning.
What Anon did to Hagel and the people in her life is questionable at best. Some were reassured and sympathized with. Some were led on and terrorized by an acutely sentient deepfake. And yet, despite these clear invasions of her life and likeness, Hagel comes to praise Anon for its ability to live her life better and quicker than she can. The prospect of training AI to perform a better and more algorithmically viable version of ourselves is haunting, and the knowledge that this practice is being endorsed by an anthropologist doubles down on that feeling. I can't imagine wanting to offload our human interactions to something like Anon, which is openly intended to manipulate and imitate its conversation partner. I can do that plenty well on my own, and it enriches my life to do so.
The final chapter's thesis was equally troubling. AI is not our nurturer. It is not our mommy. It cannot take care of us. I understand this to be a challenging concept to come to terms with after being nurtured by AI for an unspecified number of years, but the state of this book seems to speak to one's mental state after experiencing all of that.
On a prose level, this book still struggles. I understand the intent of writing Anon as the most human "character" in this book, but it gets to a point where I question how these people exist in the world behaving this way. I cannot believe any of these conversations happened anything like this, and if they did, I'd love to be in the room to witness it. Nothing written in Anon feels like truth, and perhaps that's the point. Maybe Hagel experimented with AI hallucinations in her writing. I wouldn't be surprised. If you're looking for works on technofeminism, you would be better off on Substack.
This book was certainly written for someone and could speak deeply to their interest in AI's evolution, but I believe (and part of me sincerely hopes) that situation is few and far between. Anon, to me, is a warning for the times to come, and I will certainly be heeding it.
(Thank you to Harper Collins Canada and Netgalley for providing this ARC.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review