Set My Heart to Five

by Simon Stephenson

Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart to Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening.

Unhappy with his programmed job of dentistry and inspired by a love of classic movies, Jared sets out on a bold mission: to use the power of his burgeoning feelings to forever change the world for him and all his kind. Unfortunately, Jared intends to do this by writing his own movie, and things do not proceed according to plan…

Unlike anything you have ever read before, Set My Heart to Five is a book for anybody who has feelings, loves movies, and likes to laugh and cry and sometimes do both at the same time. It comes uniquely guaranteed to make its readers weep a minimum of 29mls of tears.*

*Book must be read in controlled laboratory conditions arranged at reader’s own expense. Other terms and conditions may apply to this offer.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Humor, Romance, Fantasy, Audiobook, Artificial Intelligence

448 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2020

About the author

Hello, good readers!

I am from Edinburgh in Scotland, but now reside in Los Angeles, California. I have had stopovers along the way in London and San Francisco. I’m a writer and screenwriter, and before I became a full-time writer I was a physician.

My new novel, ‘Sometimes People Die’ will be published in September 2022. It's a literary thriller set in a hospital in east London around the turn of the millenium.

I have written two other books. ‘Set My Heart To Five’ came out in 2020. The Washington Post review said that I might be ‘Vonnegut’s first true protege’. You’d better believe I have been dining out on that ever since, and will be for the rest of my days.

‘Let Not the Waves Of the Sea’, my memoir about losing my brother came out in 2012. It won Best First Book at the Scottish Book Awards, and was serialized on BBC Radio 4.

I’ve worked as a writer on various films including Pixar’s LUCA, PADDINGTON 2, and my own THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN. Like every other screenwriter in Hollywood, I have a bottom drawer full of unproduced scripts.

Away from work I mostly like to ride my bike in nearby Griffith Park. in hope of encountering my neighbor the mountain lion. I'm also a fan of animals (petting them not eating them,) cakes (eating them not petting them), and soccer/football.

Reviews

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this original, delightful, poignant, and heartwarming book. It was written with wit, wisdom and insight into the human condition despite its shortcomings and the perception of what it means to be human.

The story takes place in 2053 and is narrated by a bot, Jared. We don't know the entire fact about world conditions. We are told that New Zealand and perhaps North Korea were obliterated, some cities are permanently aflame, all planes in the sky crashed on a single day, and Elon Musk incinerated the moon by mistake. Ha!
Bots have replaced humans in many jobs and transportation is by driverless uber or automatic bus.

Jared works as a dentist as it was judged that empathy had no part in that profession. Bots, like Jared, were designed and programmed to be incapable of feelings, whereas doctors require empathy (a good bedside manner) even if their diagnosis and prescriptions are wrong. Jared is programmed to tell each human he meets:
"Please do not be fooled by human-like appearance.
I am a mere bot.
I do not have feelings or anything else that might be misconstrued as a human soul."

Jared notices one morning that numbers in his cloud are decreasing based on the number of teeth he examines per day in his dental practice. This countdown indicates a near future date when he will be recalled and destroyed by the Bureau of Robotics. He has been programmed to think and speak in a literal, logical and linear manner. According to his programming for dentistry, some exclamations and words have been added to make him seem more human but these also make him annoying, such as the too frequent 'Ha!',' I cannot!', etc.

On a visit to the doctor working in the same premises, Jared relates his problem where the numbers indicate he will soon be incinerated. The doctor's diagnosis is that Jared is suffering from depression which is a disorder of human feelings. Jared argues this is impossible, as bots cannot have feelings. This doctor is not a happy man. He never wanted to be part of the medical profession, and regrets he didn't become a screenwriter. He is a heavy drinker. His prescription is Jared must watch old movies. One day, Jared finds himself crying at a movie described as a tearjerker. He attends a number of old movies that are not named, but it is easy to identify them from the descriptions of their plots. Jared finds new emotions flooding his consciousness. The doctor gives him a chart to help him name each new feeling. He experiences emotions of excitement, hope, vengefulness, amusement, cheer, regret, delight, optimism, and discovers what happiness means.

With the time approaching when he is to be demolished, he flees to LA. There he takes a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant. He also attends classes in screenwriting. Most movies being made depict bots killing humans by lasers shot from their eyes or nuking cities from space. This has caused the public to hate and fear bots. Jared knows he must pretend to be human. Jared's screenplay aims to present to viewers that bots are kind and friendly and definitely not dangerous.
He is top of the class and a producer buys his script with a promise to make it into a movie. The producer's scheme is to have it rewritten into another Killer Robot horror film. Jared finds he is falling in love with a clumsy waitress who works at the same restaurant. They date and she returns his affection. He knows that he must confess to her that he is actually a bot. After much hesitation, he tells her. How does this work out for him?

The officer from the Bureau of Robotics is closing in, intent on Jared's capture. Jared goes on a hunt to find his 'mother', a brilliant Chinese scientist who created him and is lecturing nearby. He hopes that she can solve the problem with his love life. When he nears the lecture site, there is an unruly mob yelling," Burn the Bots!" Does he finally meet his creator, and can she offer any help?
The ending is heartwrenching but bittersweet. To be a motion picture!

[Amy Meyerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, how I loved this novel. Set My Heart to Five is one of the most original, funny, and heartwarming stories I’ve read in years. This novel has it all—humor, insight, social commentary, romance, Hollywood, the end of society as we know it, old movies, and classic cars. Jared may be a bot, but he feels emotions more acutely than most humans. I loved following him through the pages of this clever and poignant novel. Set My Heart to Five will set your heart well past that. It certainly did mine.

I'm sorry this book isn't out now for all of you to read. It was the perfect escape during these trying times. I'm hoping, come September, life looks a little different. Either way, this novel will capture your heart, so be sure to add it to your TBR list!

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wife bought this half-jokingly because she briefly worked with Simon Stephenson in Hackney when he was a doctor many moons ago, plus she knew I liked Vonnegut.

The blurb has a flattering but not totally undeserving comparison with Vonnegut. The narrator has the same wry view of human foibles.

I hadn't been expecting much but this book turned out to be funny and quite touching

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jared is a bot. Bots have taken over the responsibility for the jobs that humans no longer want to do, including Jared's job as a dentist. Bots live lives in human bodies, going to work, living in houses, eating, but with one big difference---bots have no feelings.

Then Jared goes to see a movie and discovers he is crying. What is going on? What is he capable of? What will those who run the bot world do when they realize Jared may be able to experience emotions?

I loved this book. I knew I was going to love it from the moment I first heard about it during BookExpo. Jared is a childlike narrator who shares all his thoughts and feelings (!) about the oddities he sees in the world of humans, and it's the freshness of Jared's eyes on our world that is a huge part of the appeal of the story. It's also a wry look into the world of screenwriting and filmmaking that is delightful as well.

I want to go on and on about this story until you give in and buy a copy for yourself....I liked it that much. But the truth is that this story may not be for everyone, that some may find Jared...well, annoying, with all his I think!-Ha!-10/10-BTW-I cannot!-Set it to five lingo. I hope you are not one of these people because I will have to defriend you. Ha!

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

This did not work for me. Way too much repetition. And I liked his latter book to 4 stars. This one was filled with same/same joke nuance over and over as if it were a sit. com. laugh track dialogue.

"Humans! I cannot." (This pattern of redundancy, I cannot. I feel the same way about Dr. Zeus.)

If you want a great robot story of evolution to feelings and personality- read Murderbot by Wells.

This one seems base YA level, IMHO. Filled with snide platitudes of "truth". The world of the future sounds awful too, IMHO.

[Ed · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book!
You should not!

What do you do with a deeply uninspired manuscript, full of outdated ideas and unoriginal takes on artificial intelligence? It's clearly trying to be sci-fi, it's got sentient bots and vague futuristic sentences that act as set-dressing (world-building is too generous to describe this book). But it would be rightfully laughed out of any sci-fi bookshelves for being derivative and failing to provide any interesting takes on classic, well-worn ideas. And also for being poorly written; its sad attempts at humour and ill-considered attempts at presenting a robotic voice fall completely flat. Clearly, the solution is to add more self-referential elements, a sprinkling of cynical hollywood nostalgia (read also: ripping straight from classic films) and a heavy dose of self-indulgence, and attempt to market it as literary fiction.

Weirdly, I do think this book in some ways achieves the things it sets out to do. Usually, I reserve one-star reviews for books that are both bad and technically incompetent; I try to engage on the level of the work and can appreciate what was being aimed at. But here, the aim is to write a book from the perspective of a humanoid AI that struggles to understand human emotions. So yes, we get a book from a perspective that doesn't understand emotions. Does that sound engaging to you? It uses distinctly unnatural language to get across the fact that the narrator is not human, but that means we're stuck with the repetitive and awkward prose. It's also from the perspective of someone obsessed with classic cinema, so we get heavy references and lampshading of all the cinema-style cliches. But that means the book is stuffed with cliches. Altogether, you can see what Stephenson was aiming for, but it makes it a deeply unpleasant reading experience.

Plotwise, it's an AI that's unexpectedly developing true sentience and emotions. We've seen this one a million times before, and the vast majority of those attempts are more interesting and nuance than this approach. This is not helped by our main character being pretty unlikeable; the characteristics they develop as they become "more human" start to turn them into an unpleasant person; there are possibly shades of the authors thoughts on what "being a man" means seeping through, and it's not entirely pleasant to say the least. As mentioned, if you've ever seen a film before, you'll know exactly how this goes, there's no surprises. There was one moment where the danger of an emotional climactic moment is fortunately sidestepped- fortunately for Stephenson, as I have no faith that they'd be able to write it well; less fortunate for the reader who desperately wants something interesting to happen.

The presentation of our main character as robotic is floundering and inconsistent; throwing in poorly understood references to special relativity because that's nerdy and robots would be nerdy right? Add to that some truly abysmal attempts at data visualisation. This adds up to mean that it is just hard to buy the robotic nature of the character. This isn't helped by the very poorly defined world that they exist in; the "sci-fi" ideas are one-note and thrown in for either attempted humour or attempted intrigue; but by failing to follow any of these ideas up they feel entirely false and meaningless. Needless to say, the humour doesn't work either.

This is a truly poor book that I regret reading to completion, and I apologise to the trees that died to allow it to be printed.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, I loved this. I'd say 5 in a different mood, even. RTC.

Later: The premise here is perhaps cringey to a certain type of reader: in a near future containing “driverless ubers” but no New Zealand (casualty of a nuclear exchange with North Korea, apparently), Jared, a bot who looks exactly like a human but whose brain is a biological computer and who has no emotions, begins to develop feelings, along with a taste for classic movies. Pursued by an incompetent but dogged jobsworth from the Bureau of Robotics, he flees his comfortable, sterile dental practice in Ypsilanti for Los Angeles, intending to write and direct a movie that will change the way the world feels about bots. So far, perhaps, so cute (an impression backed up by Jared’s relentlessly slangy narration: “10/10” and “I cannot!” being but two of his many catchphrases). But what makes this stand out as more than just a big-hearted underdog novel with futuristic set dressing is its obsession, nay its love affair, with film tropes—which are, of course, storytelling tropes—and by way of which Jared comments, both explicitly and unconsciously, upon his own quest.

I wrote “underdog” up there, for instance; Jared knows he’s in a quest story, and he knows how the logic of such stories works. He knows that Inspector Ryan Bridges of the Bureau of Robotics is his nemesis, and that (as per RP McWilliam’s Twenty Golden Rules of Screenwriting, a text he treats with reverence) coincidences should only occur in order to create obstacles, not to smooth the hero’s path. This incredible circular knowingness—a story about stories, and who gets to tell them, and how they can be hijacked (there’s a great subplot about an unscrupulous Hollywood producer), which also knows it’s a story, and comments on that, and the comments are both an integral part of the story and reinforce its thematic meaning—is quite brilliant, and further reinforced by form, as sections of the book are typeset to resemble a film script. If this all sounds a bit precious, please trust me when I say that it is not. There is something perfect and painful about Jared’s first viewing of Blade Runner, for instance—quite deliberately a movie about whether robots are people—or about his being reassured that the people sailing on Lake Michigan during inclement weather probably don’t want rescuing, because humans actually enjoy illogical risk. Not to mention his unexpected side trip to Las Vegas with a lonely, self-deluding fellow train traveler (who happens to hate bots), or the way he falls in love. Set My Heart to Five is poignant, funny, light on its feet, and very, very sharp. By the end, I felt—as Jared hears a famous screenwriter say—as though I’d been “f-worded in the heart”; I can’t recommend it more highly.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 in love with Jared! (If you've read it - you'll know!)

A sublime delve into what it means to be human. Jared's journey of self-discovery (a bot discovering he has developed human emotions and feelings) is one I didn't want to end. It made me want to be a more humane human. I laughed out loud and cried along with every step he took. Jared's 'awakening’ is so precious and perfectly written. His use of the Feelings Wheel makes us question what we are actually feeling at any given time. His descriptions of the nuances of human politeness are hilarious;
Ha!
Humans!
I cannot!
Discussing the very real topic of AI and the fear that bots may well one day 'take over the world' and possibly mimic us sentient beings so realistically that we cannot tell the difference between real and artificial... This book is one I will be recommending time and time again. I will be using it as a' class reader' with my Year 6 children this term. I can't wait to see what Simon Stephenson writes next.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free ebook to read and review.

[CJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you can get over the incredibly annoying first character narrative, you're gifted with a Shakespearean comedy of errors. But with a character who is compelled to describe and explain every single tiny thing, sometimes punctuated with inaccurate charts, graphs, flowcharts and venn diagrams, it draaaaaagged. Readers don't need the Bots description what a bird or pharaoh is. Plus, I presume the incorrect bar chart was meant to be witty but all it did was make me shudder and twitch in horror - at least there were no 3D pie or doughnut charts.

It does get better, but not until about 75% of the way through. Up to that point I had often found myself thinking, "output log files would be more fun to read".

Recommended for: when your plane or train is delayed for hours.

Thank you to Netgalley and 4th Estate publishers for the ARC.

[Tara May · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars! I actually liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. The structure is different and the voice is a bit grating (too many !’s), but Jared is a lovable hero, and you can’t help but want to see him succeed. There is much irony here, lots of sarcasm, and a pretty darn good story about an underdog bot (that is a very funny joke, Jared would say, because all bots are underdogs. Or toasters.) wanting to change the world. Good fun!

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Geschichte hätte auch von Matt Haig sein können, nur ohne den depressiven Einschlag. Irgendwann im zweiten Drittel wurde sie mir zu langweilig. Der Witz hatte sich abgenutzt und ich begann querzulesen.

[Rachel (not currently receiving notifications) Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Stephenson’s perceptive debut novel is a satire that explores what it means to be human through the eyes of a bot named Jared who himself is undergoing an emotional awakening. Set in 2054 with a tongue-in-cheek dystopian backdrop, “the Great Crash” has locked humans out of the internet and bot’s with human-like appearances are specifically programmed to do the jobs that humans no longer want. One of these jobs is dentistry and a bot’s total lack of empathy makes them ideally suited for the role. Jared is one such dentist bot in Ypsilanti, Michigan but things are about to get a little more complicated when he realises that he is starting to experience feelings and counting down the number of teeth he still has to interact with before he is officially “retired” in 2070. A doctor (and film aficionado) who shares his offices diagnoses him with depression and sets him an experiment to test this hypothesis, sending Jared to see old movies (made prior to “the Great Crash”) and monitoring his responses. Moved to tears by one showing the doctor gives him a ‘Feelings Wheel’ to navigate his burgeoning emotions, despite a bot with feeling supposedly being an oxymoron.

When a letter arrives from the Bureau of Robotics giving Jared an appointment for a Code 3 he knows his days are numbered and he is set to be wiped and reprogrammed. Deciding to go on the run he hotfoots it to Los Angeles convinced that his future lies is writing a movie that changes how humans feel about bots and demonstrates they are capable of emotion. Arriving in LA as a fugitive bot Jared takes a job as a dishwasher and begins a course in script-writing at a community college. But with Hollywood obsessed with killer bot movies Jared has his work cut out trying to change the established narrative that bots are evil and determined to take over the world. As his script progresses and he embarks on a romance Jared dares to dream, but in breaking the news that he is a bot to his girlfriend and ensuring his script makes it to the big screen without a maniacal bot in sight his biggest challenges are still to come!

Despite this being far removed from my usual genre of reading material I had high hopes and a fast moving and brilliantly irreverent opening showed great promise. In keeping with bot’s difficulties in writing in paragraphs, Jared’s first-person narrative is simplistic with plenty of observations poking fun at how nonsensical human behaviour can appear. Despite experiencing increasingly complex emotions it was disappointing that Jared’s narrative didn’t ever progress to more sophisticated or fluid prose. The films referenced in the book are well-known movies (Forrest Gump/Sleepless in Seattle etc) and do not necessitate the reader being a movie buff to enjoy and Jared’s strict interpretation of the ‘Twenty Golden Rules of Screenwriting’ in shaping his script is a source of mirth. At just shy of 450 pages my appetite for Jared’s ‘humour’ waned and before halfway the liberal use of his verbal tics (“Ha!”, “Humans!”, “I Cannot!”) began to exasperate me. Although hearing a strip club described as “an establishment where humans pay other humans bitcoin to sexually frustrate them” and learning that time doesn’t fly but “must decay at a steady state” initially drew a smirk these continued literal explanations quickly began to feel like hearing the same joke on repeat. Fantastic concept but far too long to fully hold my interest.

[Rachel Bridgeman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hugest of thanks to Midas Pr, once more, for inviting me on the tour for ''Set My Heart To Five', which is out now in hardcover and ebook editions, and, shortly in audiobook as well!

Interspersing a film script of Jared's life with his internal dialogue, the reader skips forward in time to 2053, when robots are grown (to the optimal of 43 and 'live' until they run down a set amount of years).

Humans have declared the jobs which robots can and cannot do-surprsingly to Jared, because humans are inexplicable, they prefer a robot to human dentist whereas a doctor is ont he list of jobs a human can do.

As Jared says, they prefer a bedside manner to an accurate diagnosis, which is inexplicable to an automaton who deals in facts.

That being said, the inexplicable begins happening to Jared.

He wakes up before his alarm goes off and lies there, waiting for it to chime.

A sum appears in his number cloud, which, when analysed, appears to be a countdown, in the number of teeth he will see, until he is deacitvated. And every day that number gets smaller.

Discussing this anomaly with his fellow professional, Dr Glundenstein, he is diagnosed with depression. This is a further anomaly(Jared cannot get annoyed as he does not have feelings). The prescription? Dr Glundenstein sends Jared to the cinema.

And so begins a bittersweet deconstruction of the human condition, told through the eyes of a robot.

From his first movie, 'Love Story', he is enamoured of what he is watching, even if he is mightily perplexed, and starts writing his own screenplay in order to see how a simple motion picture can wring tears from a machine.

I can see from other reviews where the voice of Jared could be considered annoying, he has catch phrases and repeats things in such a way that it could go from cute, to grrr, quickly. But the naivety and pure joy he brings out of the pages of this book,is so worth sticking with. Human beings also have their anachronisms which make them so identifiable-the over use of the word 'like' for example, is one which continuously annoys this reader!

When reading his observations of the illogical nature of reactive humans, it really makes you aware of how out of despondancy, creativity can flourish. I really enjoyed the wry humour which came through so well, Jared's voice feels like it has been around forever,yet is smart and fresh and new. And yet, it cannot truly be explored as his 'own voice' as if he is discovered to have developed the ability to cry or feel, he faces incineration by the Bureau Of Robots.

But using Dr Gludenstein's Feelings Wheel, Jared begins to identify more and more of the things he is not supposed to have. Where will it end up? Has he been around humans too long? Is he a glitch in the Matrix or the future of robotics?

The title of the book refers to a joke that Jared tells-again not because robots 'get' humour but because humans do-about the robot circuitry being a development of a toaster's. The early ones he explains, were literally toasted and destroyed-the worst thing a robot can conceive is being useless!

Fun and totally seeable as a future movie, I enjoyed this book and found it a breath of fresh air in the midst of reading lots of murder mysteries. If you fancy taking a break from your normal reading, this is a good book to choose.

[Susie Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got it on Netgalley and read the opening pages. This is written like a script with a ton of British humor!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a love letter for movie lovers.

Jared the bot develops complicated feelings after seeing a bunch of "old movies". These are classics that any movie love would have watched. He doesn't reference them by the titles, but by plots. And he describes them in a hilarious way.

There are also many references to rules of screenwriting. And I for a weird reason, actually know quite a bit about those. (If you never read a book about screenwriting, you won't get the "little girl survives" reference.)

This book is great, but it's for a specific group of people. Luckily I'm one of those. I guess it could be for the majority of readers if the author just decided to shorten it a bit and take out some of the movie references. But those are part of the story, too.

I loved the metaphors in the book, too. Angry people almost burned down Detroit and Panda refusing to reproduce are two of my favorites. Seriously, the author has an unique sense of humor.

I have a complaint regarding the formatting of the copy I received from Netgalley, though. The parts written as screenplays are all jumbled up. They seriously need some more formatting and editing.

All in all, great book for beginners of Sci-fi genre. It'll be even better if you love movies and have some knowledge about screenplays.

[Angela Groves · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the exact pick me up i needed right now. It's not just another 'robot gets feelings story'. It's real exploration of the human heart and the depths of emotion. It's adorable, it's funny and it's a real catharsis.

[Karla Oceanak · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 the whimsy, pop-culture nostalgia, joie de vivre, and affable skewering of idiot humans (I cannot!) I needed right now. Jared has set my jaded heart to five.

[Clare Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set it to 5! Finally, I loved this so much.

[Esme · Rating 5 out of 5]

A highly witty and funny story, which was an absolute pleasure to read. A cosy little gem and one of my favourite books this year. Stephenson's writing merges some fun Isaac Asimov robot style themes, coupled with some off beat Lemony Snicket type observations of people and society.

[Natali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this book was just a delight. I laughed the entire time and then I positively sobbed at the end. It was like watching Steel Magnolias for the first time. My husband started it so I have someone to talk to about it.

I don’t want to risk any spoilers but read this book! It’s just a wonderful experience. Also, it was already optioned for a movie so you’ll want to have read it before the movie comes out because everyone knows that you should always read a book before seeing the movie and NOT the other way around!

[Tahiti · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of those special finds that only comes along so often. I feel like this is the kind of gem you hope to get your hands on by asking all of your bibliophile friends what their best recs are, and STILL... you just don't find a book like this very often. And it feels so timely given all that is going on in the world.  
First and foremost, it is an utter page turner. Seriously,once you are along for this fun ride, I dare you to put it down - even to sleep. And it literally made me laugh out loud more times than I can count. Yet, it has some of the most thoughtfully stunning prose I have ever seen. Every so often a book has one or the other, but it is only the greats that can balance both. The only one in recent memory for me to achieve this balance page-turning with such dazzling writing is The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but this is a different genre and about a million more times inspiring and uplifting than that! 
This is the story of a bot named Jared, set in 2054. Jared is supposed to be a bot without feelings, programmed for dentistry but he discovers (through watching old movies like Forrest Gump, Love Story and Blade Runner to name a few) he does have feelings and perhaps isn’t satisfied with dentistry as his only mission. As Jared searches to understand himself, his feelings and his place in the world, Jared is all of us. Except Jared is funnier and more charming than all of us. This is what makes him the type of character that you will get attached to and want to keep in your life. The type of character that you'll miss like a dear friend when the journey ends. And what a smart, nuanced, heart-warming and thought provoking journey it is. As Jared would say, “10/10” you will both laugh and cry. 
This book is also so creative. It surprised me at every turn and it is told in a way I have never seen before. As Jennifer Egan did in A Visit From The Goon Squad, it too introduces totally new formats of storytelling, and it does so in a truly delightful way. Some of the diagrams Jared uses to explain things were the places I laughed the hardest. The use of the screenwriting format in other places was both meta and moving. One thing that is not surprising about this book is that it is slated to be adapted as a film with Edgar Wright attached to direct. It will no doubt be a huge hit. But do yourself a favor and don't miss this literary dream first!  

[Mythili · Rating 4 out of 5]

A recommendation from Cannonball Read by jomidi

This book was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a book in the vein of All Systems Red and the accompanying books, because that is a book about a bot who develops...unwarranted feelings/empathy/care, and this seemed like a similarly set up premise and therefore something I would like.
But it was not, which I should have realized because books are not just derivatives of other books. Authors generally like to write new works.
Authors!
Are great!

...my attempt at language similar to the tone of this book aside, this was a lovely gem of a book and I'm really glad I read it. It actually isn't that dissimilar from the aforementioned Murderbot series, in that you're following along with the stream of consciousness of a robot who is slowly realizing that they're more than what they "should" be. Like if all that confusion about reveries and consciousness that happened in Westworld (season 1? season 2? I literally had no idea what was going on in that show after the first season) was stripped of its trauma porn and sexposition, because as it were humans are not competent enough to run an entire expansive amusement park full of sentient robots. We couldn't even remember our passwords.

The vague allusions to the apocalypse that got Jared the Dentist Bot to where they are, the bamboozlement he feels at pretty much 99% of what humans do, the slowly dawning realization that he's going to be a feelings-driven bot from here on out, the not-at-all-implanted love for his mother, the smartest bestest scientist in the entire world...it's all very well done. And as the ending began to dawn on me--as I realized that we were too close to the ending for things to truly end in the bot/human utopia that Jared was attempting to create through the power of Art--I did, honestly, feel a bit sad and tearjerker-y. Would have generated at least 20-30 mls of tears!

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know if I it’s just because I have mild autism, but I totally identified with this robot from the beginning. I love the way he talks. I love reading a book that has words I have to look up! That hasn’t happened in I don’t know how long.

This is a story about a bot who looks just like a human in the future after the “Great crash.” The story of the crash and how it happened is part of the fun of reading the story! Anyways, there are bots doing all kinds of jobs, and Jared is a dentist. Who lives in a 3-bedroom house with a cat in order to make the humans around him feel more comfortable! The humans seem to be obsessed with the idea of bots taking over and destroying the world. All the new movies are twists on this theme. There are some old movies still, though. The ones that were still on film. And Jared loves going to watch them. Watching them totally makes tears come out of his eyes!

Then he wants more for his life and travels and falls in love and... A little over halfway through comes a twist I was not prepared for! I’ve just finished the book and I’m still feeling a little whiplash! It will definitely make a good movie.

[Kerry-louise Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a new take on a coming of age story. Jared is living in the future, 2054 to be exact, when bots are the norm and currency is bitcoin. Everyone knows that bots are not supposed to have feelings but Jared discovers that he has developed them.

This was a really sweet and uplifting read with a lot of humour and witty observations. Jared was such a lovable character and I enjoyed following his journey to get a film to screen that would show humans that not all bots are bad. It highlights some of the bizarre traits we have as humans and is a fun take on the AI theme. I can't wait to see this as movie!

[Douglas Greenshields · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book started in a promising direction, and I was hoping that it would say something interesting about humans and how... bot-like they can be. It turns into something of a farce, though, and meta like a Charlie Kaufman story for 12-year-olds. The narrator's mode, being that of a bot, is annoying on purpose, but ultimately it just makes the writing itself annoying. A lighter touch could have made this quite charming, and even interesting, but ultimately instead it's a cat's cradle of nothing very much.

[Janet Hutchinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started off initially enchanted by this book, but soon got bogged down. And a little tired of the Ha! I honestly preferred the “script” portion of the book, over the story line. And it felt about 200 pages too long.

[Cara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven’t laughed out loud at a book as much as I did with this one in a long time. Despite being such a funny read, for me the second half dragged on.

[Sonia189 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very clever novel set in 2054, after the world suffered a huge technological crash. Now robots do the jobs human don't want and Jared, the protagonist robot, is an excellent dentist but then he starts to have feelings. This changes his whole perception and he embarks on an adventure.

I liked the idea and the author's choices in developing the narrative. There is a lot of sarcasm and irony in everything, and some passages are funny as well.
Unfortunately, to me, the story drags in some moments and the quirky repetitions which characterize Jared's "speech" soon become tiresome. The reading experience was still rewarding, but not as dazzling as it seemed it would in the beginning.

[Fishie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Michigander, I thought the Michigan commentary was hilarious. Also, as someone who struggles to understand humans, it was 10 out of 10.
I have like no sense of humor and this book made me laugh a lot, usually at the same joke every time. :)
It was also very sad but in an uplifting way.
I get that it was a little cheesy and repetitive but give him a break he's a robot who just discovered feelings.

[Mr. Ryan Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful book! This is the kind of book I would feel confident recommending to anyone. It's smart and hilarious. Yes, it made me cry--and not many books have done that--but it's a joyful read.

[Lisa Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

BTW I actually gave it 3 1/2 stars but that wasn’t a choice - humans I cannot. I’m bamboozled that 3 1/2 stars wasn’t available I may need to consult my feelings wheel to fully understand what I’m feeling.