The A.I. Who Loved Me

Cute and does some really innovative things with the audio-only format that would be hard to render well in print, I think. Loved the voice acting, especially Regina Hall, who narrates Trinity's chapters, and Mindy Kaling, as the Alexa-like voice assistant Penny. (It is pretty great that the evil corporation/government entity in this book is a pretty clear Amazon analogy, considering Audible is owned by Amazon.) The book is a pretty light romantic comedy most of the way through, but it takes a hard left into more straightforward science fiction/thriller territory about 75% of the way through, with a twist that I had partially figured out but didn't entirely see coming. Content notes behind this warning: possible content warnings here are PTSD and brainwashing/gaslighting/mental manipulation - I'm happy to discuss other potential ones if anyone has questions All in all, not quite what I expected, but definitely enjoyable!

Very good book! It didn't go in the direction I thought it would. I was expecting the Star Trek TNG plot with Data's “mother” - that Li Wei was a robot copy of Trinity's dead human boyfriend. But that isn't what's going on. I was surprised at the truth, in a good way, so I won't spoil it!

This is only available as a multi-cast audiobook right now, but the author has said that print & ebook editions are planned. All of the performers are excellent, but I don't understand why it wasn't done as an audio play. It's mainly two narrators, with some actors sometimes doing specific characters, but not always. Very strange.

This has been marketed as a romcom and I think that's a little misleading. The romance is very good, and it has some light humor. But the sci-fi elements are very relevant, and done well, rather than being just a backdrop for a cute story, which is what I expected based on the cover and blurb. Instead, this is a seriously dystopian setting, and it really feels like a possible near future, unfortunately.

I like AI protagonists in general, and I enjoyed Li Wei's PoV here. We see him slowly learning to be a person through his interactions with Trinity; it's an appealing character arc for a hero in a romance. Trinity is also a great character, and I really felt her emotions, at every moment.

Overall, this is a clever story. My only real complaint is that I was left a little confused at the end, but it seems like there's a sequel planned (with different main characters).

Alyssa Cole is a treasure, that is all