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4.0 Stars
This is such a unique take on the artificial intelligence narrative. This is technically a reread because I wanted to refresh myself on the series before finishing the trilogy and I am so glad I did. This is one of those cases when I appreciated the story so much more the second time around. Yes, I originally liked it, but it was a weird story and wasn't quite what I expected.

Let me just say� this book is a little weird. Readers should not be surprised that a story that starts with a young synthetic girl eating her grandmother is going to be a bit odd. 

I am generally a huge fan of science fiction featuring AI characters, but the genre has certainly become saturated with them. So it was a delight to find a book that had a different take that I've never seen before. While the story itself is easy enough to understand, I would actually recommend this book primarily to seasoned Scifi readers because they will most appreciate the future that Ashby imagines.

The narrative of these books is a little odd. It's a strange blend between a fast paced, action packed thriller with moments of deep intellectual thoughts about personhood and identity. Personally, I lived for those more philosophical moments because those are themes that I love to explore in science fiction. So at times, the action sequences felt jarring.

The character work is this story is fairly strong. When I first read this book, I mistakenly labelled it as young adult, but rereading it I can confidently say that it's very mature. The main character is quite young and immature, which makes sense in the context of the story. Yet circumstances cause her to (literally) grow up fast. I thought this was a well done version of a coming of age narrative.

I would recommend this one to science fiction readers who are looking for a kooky AI unlike anything they have read before.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy from the publisher, Angry Robot Books.