Thank you Netgalley for the free arc! My honest opinion was that the novel had a clever storyline. 3/4’s of the story was entertaining and intriguing, the lady 1/4 was lackluster and left me skimming to finish. The bot rights reminded me of lgbtq rights, so it seemed reasonable and realistic. I didn’t like the way she treated her dog like he was an afterthought; she wasn’t a very good dog owner.

Thanks to NetGalley & Harlequin Trade Publishing for this eARC. 4.5 stars. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Certainly poses a lot of questions about what makes us human. Looking forward to reading more from this author!
If you could alter your ability to feel things, would you want to? Throughout this book, despite being reminded of Julia being a synth, it is still easy to accept her as a human. The author paid attention to details of what separates humans and technology, including physical & emotional responses to regularly occurring events. The mystery remained intriguing throughout most of the book and the twist caught me by surprise. Containing elements of romance and all the drama that we love in a reality TV show, this novel also manages to keep the reader turning the pages, desperate to discover the mystery behind the murder and Julia's true purpose. Highly recommend!

The Bachelor meets Black Mirror in this story about a Synth woman who is literally made for the man starring in a Bachelor-style reality tv show.

The story is told in 'then' and 'now' segments which I really enjoyed and felt that it allowed the story to play out in a suspenseful way. Honestly this was a great sci-fi twist on a domestic thriller! I loved the character of Julia and found her emotions really relatable, yet still believable as a synthetic woman.

#ad I received a gifted advance copy of this book - many thanks to the author and publisher.

Fiercely feminine and genius in every sense. This book has it all: thrills, reality TV, love, murder, mystery, suspense, AI synths, and nonstop action.

Although the main female character isn’t human, exactly, every woman can relate to her. Going off her instincts alone, she falls in love on reality TV and has a baby shortly after. She doesn’t think about really doing anything else - much like us, this is what she was programmed to do.

Since the moment I saw this book I knew I had to read it and it did not disappoint. This book keeps you engaged the entire time, while also throwing in a few plot twists. THE DOG FOOD … I knew it, but didn’t know the involvement of which characters.

You won’t be able to put this book down. As we flip between then and now, we follow Julia from her inception to her experience on a reality dating show to her life after the show has ended. Both timelines are timely, interesting, and pull you deeper into the story.

Ms Jenna Satterthwaite, you are so very talented and a genius when it comes to storytelling. I cannot wait for you to write your next book and I can’t wait to be able to read it.

This book comes out July 2, 2024 - and TRUST me if you love thrillers that involve some AI - you will love this book. This needs to be either a movie or a limited series. For real. I’d watch that.

This novel is so original and so compelling.

Julia is a synth, without human rights, and when she stands accused of her husband’s murder she needs to find out what really happened to save her baby daughter.

It’s a perfect mix of fun and suspense and I love the Bachelor flashbacks too. The twists are excellent and the ending so satisfying.

Highly recommend.

I like the concept of this book (a Westworld-style "Synth" competing on a show like the Bachelor) but I didn't love the execution of it, or the ending. In some ways, this book is a bit like the movie Momento, where we see things in reverse, events that happen at the end where clues in the beginning make sense - I liked that a lot (like the significance of the brass figure in the house). But this book felt very long and I think it was overly so given the various plot points (and way too much of Julia's courtship with Josh, we know they end up together, I didn't need all the other stuff). I stalled out about halfway through and then picked it up a week later and powered through the rest of it. I had issues with the ending but I don't want to say too much and give anything away. I'll just say - it didn't seem very empowering to women with how Julia ends the story. Also what was the deal with Deborah and the four dead babies? That felt weird to me. Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read. I think Ms Satterthrwaite has potential, I just had some mixed thoughts about the resolution of her debut.

Julis is one of the contestants on the reality show the proposal. Josh finds that Julia was made for him. She should be she is a synthetic. Now they are married and have a small child living in Indiana. But Josh turns up missing and Julia is the suspect

Wow, what a great book! Hard to believe it’s a debut. Made For You is like the Bachelor mixed with Ex Machina. It’s a slow burn mystery which means we have time to get to know the characters really well. They feel so realistic. I also have to mention, our main character Julia is a nursing mother of an infant and I just appreciate how this was handled and not forgotten! Nursing, pumping, clogged ducts and mastitis.. all very real and all very relatable.
Made For You is told in dual time lines “then” and “now”. There’s plenty of twists and turns as the past gets closer to the present and we learn more and more what happened the night Julia’s husband goes missing.
I was impressed by the writing. The dialogue is realistic and not annoying. The writing wasn’t too flowery or over the top and it made me feel the right amount of creepy! There’s some suspense and action, and once you start finding out answers, the twists are unexpected and surprising.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy. I recommend this one! Be sure to look for it when it’s out in July!

This had everything I was looking for in a murder mystery and had the twists that I was enjoying and didn't expect to happen. The characters were what I was hoping for in this type of book and I thought they worked with the story. I enjoyed how good the fantasy elements were. I thought there's a really fun concept and like the idea of the synth and how they worked in this world. It had that scifi feel that I wanted and also had a little bit of fantasy to it. Jenna Satterthwaite has a great style for the genre and glad I got to read this.

Full disclosure, this was a total NetGalley cover grab…😍 I went in blind having not read the synopsis so imagine my surprise when I—someone who doesn't typically read books with any elements of suspended reality—started reading and came across the word synth. Umm…the eff is that?

Turns out, it’s a synthetic human. 😳 That’s right, an artificial woman. Vert da ferk! 𝑂ℎ, 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑟, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝐼 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒? The good news? I liked it. 🫣 What a fun surprise that was!

It took me a hot minute to get into it but once I did, I couldn't put it down and the ending was SO good! I'm glad I picked this one up. Thank you to NetGalley and MIRA for the opportunity to read and review!

"Do I have a soul? Will it rise?"

This is a really a 4.5 for me, but I'm rounding up because I feel the ending was so well done.

Woo, okay! I didn't expect this book to sneak up on me like that after opening with those melodramatic reality TV scenes. It says "The Bachelor meets Black Mirror" on the cover, and I would definitely agree with that. This book has the storyline and all the elements of a mashup of the two: Over-the-top romance reality TV, hyperrealistic AI "synthetic human", mystery, thrills, some darkness and violence, big epiphanies about the human condition and how tech is what humans make it, etc. For me, personally, I am much more a sci-fi/Black Mirror lover vs. contemporary romance/reality TV lover, but I still found myself mostly engaged throughout the book (especially the last 30% or so) and enjoyed it a lot by the end.

One thing I really came to enjoy was the narrative style of this book. It's all in first person from the perspective of the Synth (Julia), and it also alternates between "Then" and "Now", with the "Then" eventually catching up to where the "Now" started. At first, I thought this might be overly ambitious or unnecessary, but by the halfway point I was really into it and saw exactly what the author was doing – creating that stark contrast and feeling of, "How the heck did the Then lead to Now?" And I would say this book truly kept me guessing at that – I predicted a couple of the twists, but definitely not all of them.

Now, for the reason I took 0.5 off: I thought the beginning 70% of the book dragged a bit and could have been condensed a little more. I remember I got about 40% in and then didn't pick it up again for a day or two (which doesn't happen often), because it hadn't "grabbed" me yet – and like I said, I lean much more to the Black Mirror side than The Bachelor. So, if that sounds like you, too, just know that there are a bunch of cringe-worthy, cheesy, reality TV romance scenes in the first half that you may roll your eyes at a little. Although I'm pretty sure the author did this on purpose and part of the reason was satire, I did find myself feeling like it was taking too long and looking forward for it to be over so we could get to the exciting stuff that moved the plot forward. And by the end, I even wondered if the incorporation of the Reality TV show was necessary. I think the book could have still worked really well, or potentially better, without it. (HOWEVER, I didn't take off more than 0.5 because I know there is a target audience that would totally eat up the reality TV stuff – and no judgement there!)

Just be warned though, once you get to 70%-ish in, you won't be able to stop. And I was furiously highlighting quotes from that point on as well, because the author did an amazing job bringing up such thought-provoking topics, and what did Julia really deserve? The characters all feel really deep and developed by the end as well, with some completely surprising you.

Overall, you can probably tell by my rating that I would totally recommend this book!

I enjoyed this book! The concept was interesting and the twists worked well to advance the plot and complicate our heroine's situation.

In the first half, the THEN/NOW structure split the vibe between a romance (behind the scenes from the "the bachelor"--esque reality tv show and a thriller (her husband's disappearance). I enjoyed the back-and-forth at first, but then both sections dragged out for too long. I started skipping the romance sections entirely and skimming the thriller sections. Basically, I got bogged down in the middle of the book.

Jumping ahead to the end, the pieces came together neatly. Well-paced writing that also explored character, and the supporting cast had their own tidy arcs.

With less material and more editing, this could have been an "A" for me.

This was such a funky story that is so ahead of its time…, well actually not really! I enjoyed the fun out of the box ideas but it was a tad hard to follow.

AI meets reality television in this entertaining, thought-provoking thriller. Julia Walden is a Synth (synthetic human) designed and built for one purpose: to compete on a reality TV show called The Proposal and win the heart of handsome bachelor Josh LaSala. It’s all dates, roses, and falling in love… until it isn’t. Julia may have gotten the man, but her dream turns into a nightmare when Josh goes missing – and she’s the police’s number one suspect.

I was blown away by how much I enjoyed Jenna Satterthwaite’s genre-bending debut novel! This mash-up of thriller, sci-fi, romance, and pop culture is not only totally entertaining, but also deep and keenly observant. Told on two timelines, the Then sections take us from Julia’s creation, through her time as a contestant on the Bachelor-esque reality tv show, and brings us up to date on her life as wife and mother. The Now timeline is all about the suspenseful aftermath of Josh’s disappearance. Both timelines are so well-written! I was able to perfectly envision everything that took place during filming in the past and was totally enthralled as Julia tries to figure out what really happened to Josh in the present. This story kept me guessing the entire time and I was completely surprised by the big reveal! Julia is fantastic character: well developed and sympathetic in her almost-humanness, and her experiences really had me thinking about prejudice, the ethics of AI, and the morally grey area of programming vs. culpability.

Fans of Annie Bot by Sierra Greer will definitely enjoy Made for You! Many thanks to NetGalley, Harlequin Trade Publishing, and MIRA Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

This was my first ever science fiction read and I really enjoyed it! It really makes you stop and think about how life would be (or might be in the future!) if we ended up with synthetic humans. That being said, I do wish we had’ve gotten a bit of a deeper explanation as to what Julia was? Was she a robot? Was she a super human? I’m still not clear and would’ve loved if they had’ve laid it out a bit more for us. I also think there could have been a little more character depth. They all felt just a tad hollow!

But other that that, I didn’t see the ending coming and it felt complete and satisfying while also making you a little uneasy at the very end. Overall though, it was great!

You’ve heard of The Bachelor. Now imagine it with a Synth woman competing against her human counterparts to capture an eligible bachelor’s heart. Jenna Satterthwaite’s phenomenal debut novel Made for You brings this futuristic idea to life … but will this unconventional love story have a happily ever after?

Julia, one of only three Synth women in the world, is seemingly human in every sense of the word, apart from her body being built with robotics instead of cells and DNA. Julia, implanted with a donor’s eggs, can even become pregnant and have a child, and if you didn’t know any better, you would never guess she isn’t human. Which is why she is able to compete on the reality TV dating show, The Bachelor, and no one is the wiser. When Julia makes the choice to tell bachelor Josh that she is, in fact, not human, she fears that he will send her home. But Josh can’t deny that there is something between him and Julia … she was, after all, made specifically for Josh by Andy Wekstein, Julia’s creator.

Now, a couple of years post-Bachelor, Julia and Josh are happily married with a new baby Annaleigh. They are living in seemingly marital bliss in a rural Indiana, but even there, they can’t escape the harassment they receive by people who do not believe Synths should exist. Their lives take an even darker turn, however, when Josh leaves one night for a hiking trip and never returns. Julia soon finds herself as the prime suspect in his disappearance, targeted by the town’s Synth-hating sheriff. Can Julia put together the pieces of the mystery and find Josh before she finds it’s too late … not only for him, but also for herself?

Contemporary novels featuring robots are quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I love when the concept of robots is introduced into real-world settings and the robots are given the opportunity to interact with society in a relatable, accessible way. This may very well be our near future with the recent surge in AI capabilities, and I find stories featuring humans and robots co-existing to be fascinating. This is the first robot story I have read that falls into the suspense category, and I love the questions that it raises about the culpability of robots when confronted with a crime.

Told in dual storylines, featuring the past and present, Made for You slowly unravels the mysteries of what happened to Josh that fateful night. It takes us back to Julia and Josh’s days on The Bachelor and shows the intricacies of their complicated relationship up until Josh’s disappearance. The present day storyline follows Julia as she tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to Josh, while also attempting to clear her name.

This tightly-woven novel had twists and turns that I did not see coming, and the perfectly composed ending where everything came together was the icing on the cake for me. I sat back in awe at Satterthwaite’s cleverness as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place in my mind. A nicely done romance-suspense-sci-fi hybrid by an up-and-coming new author!

Recommended for fans of Annie Bot.

Who knew a Bachelor meets AI murder mystery would be so deep?

Made for You felt like an exploration of the vulnerability we have as humans - through the lens of a synth. The dual timeline mystery had me guessing all the way through while I empathized with the main character as she navigated/discovered the feeling of joy, grief, otherness, pain, friendship, love... and all the paradoxes that comes with being alive.

I didn't expect to walk away with several apt observations on culture, philosophical questions, and personal takeaways from a story like this. I was simply delighted.

Not a fan of AI books/cyborg type characters usually, but I enjoy reality shows from time to time, so I wanted to see what this book was all about. I like the bright cover and title. The story was a bit off for me. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Perhaps at a later date it will capture my attention more.

This book was a wild ride that kept me turning digital pages as fast as I could for as long as I could. I loved the dual timeline narrative showing us how the main character got to be in this position, loved the whole concept of a synthetic human being on a Bachelor-esque show, and the way the author addresses deep, existential concepts naturally and sincerely, without beating the reader over the head with them. A delightfully entertaining and thought-provoking mash-up of reality-TV, science fiction, and crime thriller. I would definitely recommend this book to friends and family!

This book was a fun ride. The break-up of Now and Then really helped in building the story into it's final conclusion. I really enjoyed the "Then" parts when The Proposal was going on. Since I was a fan of The Bachelor, it allowed me to very easily visialize those scenes as if they were real and not just words written on a page.

I really loved how Julia was written, but also the whole story behind her creation. It gave me pause to think of what liberties humanity could take in creating something like her or LARS - who at the end of the day was the real hero of the story.

I really enjoyed this story, even with some of the more hard to believe liberties that were taken in order to make the twists and turns of the story work. It made sense in the storyline and I don't read fiction for reality anyway, so it worked perfectly for me.

This is definately a book that should be on your shelf and I look forward to subsquent books by this author in the future.