I’ve read a few books by this author, and I like his subtle storytelling style. This book is no different – showing us a world just like our own, with a few small exceptions.
One of those exceptions is Klara, an innocent and diligent AI robot. There are few things in this book that are explained directly – the author shows us episodes and we gradually start to understand. I think this is an unusual (and welcome) choice for fiction about the future. What we know about humans, about grief and about loss are all there to reflect our views of Klara – and I spent most of the book dreading what these superficial and selfish humans might do to her.
This was not a long book, but I enjoyed almost all of it. There was one scene that stood out as jarring, and without going into here I thought that it took place in the city outside a theater with many of the main characters and (purposely) left a lot of confusion for the reader. I got what the author was trying to do here (maybe) but I think it was a bit overlong.
Other than that I really liked the book and it did a good job of showing a future that was both chilling and warm.
The next book I am reading is Better Off Dead by Lee and Andrew Child.
