Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book.
I thought it was original, well written, creative and creepy.
The cover of the book was great.
This was Katie M. Flynn’s 1st novel and I will definitely keep an eye out for future work by this author.

The premise of this book is intriguing. People pay to have their consciousness uploaded when they die so that they then exist in a mechanical body and act as companions either to their family or to people who pay to lease the companions. The consciousness can be moved to different bodies, so the companion can in effect live indefinitely. A major drawback to this book is that it jumps from character to character in each chapter with no explanation as to who that character is, which results in a bit of confusion. As each chapter progresses, you eventually are given enough pieces of information to figure out how that character fits in with the overall picture - with one companion who ties the entire story together. While I liked the overall story, I found the effect of jumping from character to character to be distracting and frustrating.

This book started out quite intriguing. Unfortunately, many times throughout the story I found myself asking "what character is this?" - there are too many, more than needed for the story, and "where am I". Timelines were also difficult to track, sometimes past events seemingly being current.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

This had a great premise, and I was so intrigued by the murder! I wanted to know more about that storyline, I wasn't too interested in the other storylines, so it really started to drag. I found myself skimming and waiting for some action or a discovery.

I was really excited to read this book. The premise of the story was intriguing and seemed plausible in the distant future. However, the story was poorly executed in my opinion. The book changes point of views several times and goes through some major time jumps, none of which really help carry the story along. With so many characters, I didn't really feel like the reader could get to know them well enough to even care about them. The plague and the quarantine were ideas that were left on the back burner. Yes, it was happening throughout the story but didn't become relevant enough to be considered a major conflict in the plot which left it feeling anticlimactic. It felt more like a series of vignettes than an actual novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Flynn brings the post apocalyptic world into focus and gives the reader a front row seat. If you've been wondering what the ever-after is like, you probably didn't think of it like this, trapped in a robot, waiting on the rich.

I was very excited to read The Companions by Katie M. Flynn. Told from several perspectives, the book focuses on The Companions who live to entertain and serve households that are under quarantine for a nasty plague in San Francisc. The idea of uploading human consciousness so that families can keep their family member with them after they pass away was intriguing. I think the hardest part of processing this book was realizing how much the actual dying part stayed with The Companions.

The book did not flow well for me, I felt it was disjointed. Perhaps maybe more editing so that the book makes more sense. There were times when I felt like I was lost or had missed chapters, then later there were times when I was like oh so now we meet this character again.. I would really love to read the story again once it is edited so that the story has better transitions and flow. The concepts of the overall story of the book hold promise of a good read and the characters are intriguing.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Katie M Flynn, and Gallery/ Scout Press for a digital advanced reader copy for me to read and enjoy. As always, my opinions are my own.

I really liked the idea of this book. I didn't always know exactly what was going on...but found that it didn't really matter, the story carried on anyway. It is a scary thought, that robotics could be taken to such a high level...but not totally unbelievable. What was even worse was the fact that the mistake of making the companions had to be corrected...gruesomely. I didn't really like the ending when I finally got there. I wanted a definite answer. I wouldn't consider it a cliffhanger ending...more of a decide on your own kind of ending. Definitely recommend that you read this book...it fits so many categories of books.

This book was not for me. Is it YA or just written that way? Also, the different perspectives didn’t add anything to the story.

Thanks NETGALLEY for the ARC

This book has a good premise, and parts of it are quite good, but it doesn't quite gel into a coherent whole.

The basic idea here is that a megacoroporation figures out a way to upload people's minds into computers upon death, and those minds are then put into robot bodies (of varying quality depending on how much one is willing to pay). Consciousness remains. Sounds great, right? Except that the "people" are regarded as the intellectual property of the megacorp, and are leased to living caretakers. Their mental capacity is controlled by their processing speed, and the bodies range from trash cans on wheels to full replicants. None of whom have any rights or any more legal status than a piece of software.

Where this all goes is fairly predictable. The main storyline follows one person who is able to throw off the programmed command restraints on her and go off on her own. Topics addressed, to varying degrees, include hardware problems, imperfect data transfers, what it is like to be a conscious mind WITHOUT a body, what stops the megacorp from uploading a copy of a mind of someone who's NOT dead (absolutely nothing), what stops them from copying the mind of someone who's been uploaded (again, absolutely nothing).

But there's also a plague and massive quarantine that seems completely irrelevant, and all sorts of side characters that get introduced and never explored. Like I said, parts of it were good, but on the whole it just didn't add up to anything special.

I've said it before, but I think more authors need to try not writing a novel so much as a series of vignettes. When I stopped trying to follow the central storyline, and treated this book as a series episodes devoid of context, it worked better.

Thank you to Net Galley for providing me with an e-book copy. The premise of this book is so good. I was very excited to read it and I picked it up as soon as I got it. The book to me is fairly short and I feel like in this world it's hard to pull it off in 272 pages. There were quite a bit of characters and different perspective but hardly enough character development. I wasn't invested in most of the characters. The middle part of the book was a bit slow. And I do think it needed a bit more world building. Overall for a debut novel this wasn't bad. I do think the author has a lot of potential and the cover is great. I enjoyed it enough to finish the book and I'd give it a 3 star.

This was……odd?
The premise was great - a virus wipes out most of the population and the remaining survivors now have to live inside. Technology has advanced so much that it is possible to upload the consciousness of the dead into a "companion" that you can either spend loads of money on to make human-like (think along the lines of skin, hair, etc) or you can just leave in a computer screen.
We first meet Lilac, who is a companion for a mother and daughter duo but from herein things got really weird. So much happens and there are so many characters that it was hard to keep track of who was who and what was actually going on. The chapters were super long, which meant it just seemed to drag and came across as a chore to read. There was very little story or world-building - nothing was really mentioned about the initial events of the virus or who developed the companions, which lead to me struggling to see the relevance of the virus to the overall story. Some of the sex scenes were a bit random and I got so confused at one point as someone was hunting a polar bear?!
I do love the cover though, probably one of the nicer ones I've seen in a while!

Overall, I thought it was a fantastic premise but very poor execution. It seemed like the author had loads of great ideas that they wanted to include and, instead of only including a few, just included them all regardless of whether they were relevant or not. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this to other readers.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

This book drew me in right away and I read it all within 24 hours. The author creates the characters in such a way that you’re immediately attached to them and want to know what happens to them next. This book was riveting, novel, frightening, and understandable. So glad I came across it.

2.5 stars.
The premise as written on the back of the book sounded really cool but the execution fell short. The idea of downloading consciousness and that consciousness being Proprietary Information of a corporation is interesting and terrifying. I found the jumping from one person's (or companion's) perspective to another to be somewhat confusing, and I had to keep flipping back and forth to remind myself who various characters were. Additionally, there were long time lapses between some of the chapters without really filling in many of the gaps or events. That was disappointing. I would have liked it to be a longer book with more detail. And the end was sort of cut off. It felt incomplete in a lot of ways.

I love fantasy/ sci-fi novels....this particular one not so much. The description sounded entertaining but the book just dragged for me.

I don't love sci-fi. I'm not wild about poorly drawn, outlandish situations superimposed on reality to force a thin moral conundrum.

This, however, was the opposite - an actual novel with intricate structure, involved characters and, well, yes, a little AI.

From the description I thought I would love this but it was a rough read. I think it was a very good idea and that it just needed a lot more working, it read a bit like an outline/rough draft. I will definitely keep an eye out for future works by this author though.

I have been trying lots of fantasy reads lately, but sometimes the world building just takes too long for me to stay interested. Did not finish.

2 / 5 stars for this Sci-Fi story. While the description of this book immediately caught my eye, it is painfully similar to the Netflix show Altered Carbon. Easy to read and gripping at the beginning. The book lacks the descriptive language that is typical of a sci-fi, without real scenery or world that is depicted. Similarly, most of the characters themselves were too numerous and bland. Certain characters, Gabe and Kit, I feel deserve more of the spotlight. The plot is feels fractured by too many points of view, and the “virus” that causes the quarantine is left so untouched I wondered if it was necessary.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is also left on Goodreads.

I am not sure what it was, but I didn't really like the writing with this title. I'm not sure why, but I just didn't connect with it, despite the fascinating premise. We will still be buying a copy for the library, though. Thank you for the advanced read.