A Psalm for the Wild-Built

When I thought of a monk and a robot this was not what I had in mind.

When I read the description at my indigo I was like: woahhh. But then I was surprised when my thinking was a bit too old and the novel presented a very futuristic ideal of the two concepts and I was pleasantly surprised. This novel was, to put it simply, everything I liked smacked into 100 pages. Theology and wilderness with goofy circumstances made for such a fun enjoyable read.

I thought I was gonna walk into this novel with this super like monky monk uk travelling through the jungle with a very roboty robot. However, it was not like that at all. The monk was um very unmonklike which was one of my issues. Dex def did not act very wise as a “monk.” I thought Dex was kinda the opposite of a monk, very unknowing and like so rash. It didn't even pair them as a like young monk but one that's kinda old and should know what's up. I get that a robot is super smart, but it was like way more wise than the monk. I think that was kinda the issue. The “monk” aspect was kinda just for the sake of the novel and being captivating. The religions weren't explored that much and very much felt like an afterthought. As if the author made this super cool concept but just kinda got lazy... and didn't want their main character to be constrained by this crucial aspect of themselves so just made them super super lax ig.

On the other hand, my favourite part, we're the robots. The thing that I found so absolutely endearing, was the names of the robot. Like that was actually so cute. Two foxes? Cmon. Actually so great. While a tad bit too much stuff with too little actual showcasing and explanation, the theology of the novel was quite interesting as well and I found was pretty enjoyable. I do love made up religion in novels. The prologue especially felt interesting to me with that question of which god the robots adhered to.

Honestly all my favourite parts had to do with mosscap. Like I loved it and I don't get how anyone could hate it. And this leads to my main issue. I found Dex so like, bruh how could you get mad at this cute ass robot. This cutey patootie. Moss cap actually steals the show in this novel. it acts so human, much more human than Dex imo which is ironic. But not so much human to pull away from the interesting and unique story.

Throughout the story I had this super nostalgic feeling. The various stories about what the other robots were up to and the uniqueness of them. I really felt in tune with the mc's aspirations too. Super random but the want to go listen to crickets was such a cool and interesting motive. This I felt was the best part that Dex contributed to the story. Otherwise I just omg like when dex was irrational and mean to mosscap I got so annoyed. Dex tbh was just weird. I didn't like how the author kinda added in sex and whatever for the sake of it. I especially found it really weird when dex was thirsting after that guy with babies. Really off putting and kinda made me leave the world that was crafted for a second cuz I was just iffy about it. I also found that it was kinda dumb for like this whole tea monk thing to be hyped up but then nothing done with it. I thought it was a pretty interesting and cool concept. But we kinda just glazed over it.

I think the main issue I had with the book was simply that it sometimes took itself too seriously. Like I liked the explanation of life and whatever but bro breaking into tears and the dramaticacy just felt icky to me when Dex was so emotional less and it felt like Rex's problem wasn't really a problem. But nonetheless the unreal problem had a very unique and real kind of solution given by mosscap.

#iwantmoremasscap