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Riley Caples

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)

by Becky Chambers (Goodreads Author)

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Riley Caples said: " Over the past few weeks, I read the book A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers for my English class. This book is under the science fiction and solar punk genre as it follows a particular character named Dex. The author, Becky Chambers, has a Over the past few weeks, I read the book A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers for my English class. This book is under the science fiction and solar punk genre as it follows a particular character named Dex. The author, Becky Chambers, has a background in the performing arts and grew up in a family heavily involved in space science. She now lives with her wife in the state where she grew up. As I read through the book, I wrote a reaction update to a majority of the chapters that I read. The book follows the main character, Sibling Dex, throughout their life, an agender Monk struggling to find their place in life.
As this book was assigned and not voluntarily chosen, I did not particularly like this book in any way. I typically like books about things I am interested in, such as a sports book or a book about some interesting historical event. I do not find fiction books like A Psalm for a Wild Built interesting as they are too fictional and very different from the real world. For example, throughout the book, the main character, Sibling Dex, journeys to find their purpose and satisfaction. However, throughout this journey, they run into a robot named Mosscap, who finds Dex in the wilderness and is intrigued to learn about humans. This will likely not happen randomly in today's world; at least not for a few years.
The theme of this book is finding purpose in a world full of technology and reconnecting with nature. I may not have liked this book. However, the author did very well writing this book as they made it very easy to understand the purpose of the book. For example, it is shown many times in the book that Dex runs into many conflicts, but with Mosscaps's help, they overcome those struggles and continue their journey. This shows that technology can coexist with humans in ways people may not have known. When reading this book, if I were not told that Mosscap was a robot, I would not have known because of how many human traits Mosscap had. While the author may have written the book well by getting their main point across, the book was difficult to follow at the beginning due to the pronouns used. Since sibling Dex is a monk, they do not have a gender, so their pronouns are they/them, which I am unfamiliar with.
As said before, this book is a very fictional and unique book that is only for a certain audience. This audience is people interested in scientific and futuristic stories because of the book's theme. For example, Mosscap is a robot in this story and has so many human traits that they seem like a real person, which shows how strong technology is. I would not recommend this book to anybody with interests similar to mine, such as history and sports. I am confident that people who have the same interests as me would not find much interest in this book after hearing from others in my class and what they have to say. Although, if one is interested in science fiction, I recommend this book as it could be interesting to them. Overall, this book was certainly not for me, but not every book is for everyone. ...more "

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(page 151 of 151)
"I was surprised that Dex continued questioning their worth and purpose in life and ended up with no answer. The way that the author connected this to the memory of their mug with their father was very interesting. The fact that Dex never found the end of their journey by the end of the book is quite annoying. I don't understand what the point is if there is no ending." — Dec 19, 2024 07:31AM

Jan 13, 2025 08:17AM · see review