I love the idea of this book far more than the execution.
While it was well written and had an interesting premise, it lacked in several
other areas to much to overlook. The basic story is a retelling of Beauty and the
Beauty with a futuristic, sort of I-robot, vibe to it. I enjoyed the main story
points and the romance. The romance in this version is better than most
retelling because Lorccan, the “beast”, isn’t actually the captor. This make
the relationship more consensual and less creepy. I also like Alainn for the
most part however I found that I missed the book loving aspect of Belle though.
That is such an integral part of that character in every retelling I have ever
read that to leave it out felt wrong somehow.
The problems that I found with the book were issues of
pacing, a lack of world building and extraneous characters. The relationship
between Lorccan and Alainn was slow and then very suddenly sped up. It felt unnatural
between them. They were so hesitant before that the quick build up felt off.
The world in which this story takes place is barely
explained at all. It seems to be just the same as the world we live in today.
Except there are AI robots that apparently can pass for human in nearly every
aspect. In addition Alainn’s dad and brother apparently make these robots in
their garage. What kind of world is it where a man can just make a robot with
Artificial intelligence in his garage? There really should have been a
significant amount of time spent explaining the world and a brief history of
how the robots developed would also have been nice.
There were several side stories that could have been
entirely left out. The story of Alainn’s job and Greg felt like it was just
tossed into the book. It jarred me out of the story and I found it boring so I
barely read that section. In addition the story of Alainn’s friend Cara wasn’t necessary
either. While it seemed to be used to give reason’s for Alainn’s behavior I
felt like it wasn’t needed and she would have behaved the same way without that
backstory.
There was a little talk towards the end about ethics and the
humanity of the robots but it wasn’t fleshed out much. There is something there
that could have brought a lot more depth to the story but was glossed over and
too simply and neatly resolved.
This book is an enjoyable enough read and might be right for
some people but it wasn’t the story for me.
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