True Life in Uncanny Valley, by Deb Caletti, was engaging enough to keep me reading, but I found it quite challenging to get into. I continued reading in hopes that something would resonate with me, but it was merely okay. I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC ebook that I read and reviewed. All opinions are my own.

Everyone is eager to know what Hugo Harrison’s next invention will be except for Eleanor Diamond. Hugo is Eleanor’s father, but he abandoned her, her sister, and her mother. When Eleanor finds out that her father’s wife, Aurora, is looking for a summer live-in nanny for Arlo, Eleanor’s half-brother, she decides to apply for the gig. She ends up getting it. Now she’s hoping to learn more about the family she’s never known. As she gets to know her family, however, she become more and more uneasy about the top-secret work her father is doing. Juggling a web of lies and half-truths, she tries to navigate a sea of contradictions about her upbringing and her father’s legacy. Will her summer turn out the way she wants it to?

The plot is well written, engaging, and at times thrilling. The characters are well developed, authentic, and easy to relate to. The on-page sexual content feels inserted and doesn’t fit well into the book. Readers who like mysteries, realistic fiction, and coming-of-age stories will want to pick this one up. Due to on page content, this book is best suited for high school and public libraries. Recommended for most library collections. 4 stars, Gr 9 and up.

Eleanor has always wondered what her father is like in real life. She sees him every day on the news and in magazines being praised for his contributions to AI. She wishes she could spend time getting to know him away from her overbearing and judgmental mother and sister who never understand Eleanor's quirkiness. When a job is posted to work as a nanny to her half-brother, Eleanor jumps at the opportunity to live in her father's house and get to know him on a deeper level. Maybe living in a fantasy world will become her reality. But can she keep up with the lies and will she still admire her father the more she learns?

This was a very relatable book to any teen who struggled to find their identity within their own family. When her home life sucks, Eleanor escapes into the world of comics, female superheroes, and her friend group of book nerds. I also used books as a form of escapism and always wished my parents and sister were different than who they were. It's a great story about being stuck with the family you got and either accepting them as they are, or creating your own found family. Eleanor has to accept the fact that the green is not always greener on the other side.

*** I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. ***

I just finished True Life in Uncanny Valley by Deb Caletti, and wow I didn’t expect to get so hooked. It’s a YA novel, but it dives deep, way deeper than I anticipated. The story follows a young woman caught in a tangled mess of deception as she tries to uncover the truth about her family and herself. What really surprised me was how layered and thought-provoking it was. I went in expecting an entertaining read, but I got so much more.

I usually love Deb calletti, but I could not get into this book. The whole situation is just completely unbelievable and unhinged honestly. Judt confusing.

Despite the audiobook being narrated by Brittany Pressley, this book was a miss for me. I just couldn't connect with the plot or the characters.

True life in uncanny valley , I can not begin to explain how much I did not like this book.

I did not like the characters especially the MC I did not like how she was basically stalking her biological dad in order to get a job babysitting her half brother and how she felt entitled to be around him.

I DNF’d this book at 25% because of how uncomfortable it made me to read.

Thank you Netgalley Random House Children's | Labyrinth Road for the arc

Maybe I didn't fall in love with the story, but this is a memorable book for its style.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

Eleanor never felt close to her mother and sister and maybe that's why she's been stalking the famous father who never really treated her like a daughter. Suddenly, a big chance to be even closer to him; his new wife finds her at the pool and hires her to nanny her son with Eleanor's father without knowing they're actually siblings.

I love Eleanor's voice, her friends, her universe. The descriptions of her father's mansion also invite a lot of curiosity, even without the plot of his secret project. In general, I loved each character the author wanted me to and despised all the ones she didn't want me to like.

I think one of my problems with the read was the tone. It derives from Eleanor's personality but it also made it childish, while the themes were much more mature than that. This always made me frown. I would have loved it for a story with the content it makes you expect, though. My biggest problem was probably how the book made me expect more of the development. It wasn't even that I had any big guess that never came true; I just wish it didn't bring us to such a simple conclusion. The eeriness behind all Hugo's inventions and life story made me sure something much bigger was coming, and also excited to know what it could be. Where will all these fun elements take us: the title, the ever-present technologies, even Eleanor's voice. I would have gone crazier, that's what the story had been telling it would do from the beginning. Too bad it didn't.

It's still not only an interesting read but one that keeps you there with the story, thinking, wondering. Here's waiting for more from this author.



Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

THOUGHTS

Sometimes you pick up a YA book and think Wow, this author hasn't spoken with the youths in a bit. Unfortunately, that was the case here. While this book contains an interesting bit of social commentary on AI and tech "innovations," I think this commentary is more suited to an older generation that has been beguiled by this new tech. The younger crowd is a bit more skeptical, irreverent, and (frankly) informed. Was it a bad read? No. But I don't know that it will strike any chords with the intended audience.


PROS
Balancing Act: This book does a very good job of balancing the real beauty of an insanely wealthy life--the pools, the yachts, the personal chefs--with a more insta-curated lifestyle (a lifestyle made to be photographed, not lived). I liked this peek-behind-the-veil of celebrity life, even a life as "public" as an influencer's might appear.

Young Love: If there was one aspect of this book that did scream "teenage," it's Eleanor's exploration of her sexuality. Which is entirely age-appropriate. It's not like teenagers aren't curious or exploring and experimenting, and that's exactly what Eleanor's romance in this book is: experimental and new. Not every parent or reader will like this, but I don't think this content goes too far. It's like a John Green book: controversial but important.

Supporting Cast: There are a lot of characters happening in the background of this book, but Deb Caletti doesn't neglect any of them. I loved each of these side characters. Eleanor's friends Arden Lee and Clementine are great, well-rounded and very tangible. It's nice to have those best friends as her support system while she navigates this new world (and the lies she has told to access it). And I love her little brother Arlo, who could easily have been a plot device but is instead a whole, bumbling toddler character. And her relationship with Aurora, Arlo's mother, is nicely developed as well.


CONS
AI Angst... Or Not: There is no world in which I buy a teenage artist (or aspiring artist, as we might have it) being this uninformed about generative AI. Eleanor just doesn't know anything about generative AI, even though she supposedly knows all about Hugo Harrison and does in fact use generative AI. The art community is very vocal when it comes to copyright infringement in AI, and there's just no way a teenage artist, one who spends time in online spaces, wouldn't be informed and (most likely) up in arms about this new technology and it's artistic plagiarism.

Background Check?: There are some plot reasons nobody runs Eleanor's background check. But even with the reasons, it felt... weird that there was no background check run on Eleanor. She's working with a child. A rich man's child. And nobody's running a background check? I know she's our POV character, so we know she has no ill intentions, but I just can't imagine anyone hiring a stranger to work with their young child 24/7 without doing some pretty thorough vetting, especially not those living such a high-profile life.

Irredeemable: The background characters are well-developed here, as I said, which means that it is easy to love those who Eleanor loves... and hard to like those who are failing her. Even when she justifies it (poorly, in my opinion). Eleanor and her mom are often at odds, which is pretty standard for a teenager-parent relationship. But at the same time, Eleanor has the right to ask questions, to be curious about who she is and where she came from, and her mom's absolute inability to entertain her daughter's questions was really hard to read. Her mom is irresponsible. She doesn't keep great tabs on her youngest daughter (read: she has an obvious favorite). Eleanor gets excluded and belittled in her own family, and it is more than just differences in taste or regular teenage angst. Some of this was the point, to be sure. That's what spurs Eleanor to grab this job with her half-brother. But I don't know that this tension at home was supposed to read so brutally toxic. I think it wasn't, given Eleanor's consistent rationalizing of this treatment of herself at home (and the utter lack of resolution when it comes to this particular issue in her life). So, it was hard to read. Realistic, maybe, but hard. Irresponsible,


Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
7/10

Fans of Emma Lord's When You Get the Chance will like this soul-searching quest for a birth parent. Those who loved Deb Caletti's The Epic Story of Every Living Thing will like this complicated look at life, family, heritage, and learning to live on your own terms.

Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Children's for the ARC. I found the premise of the book exciting, but the plot dragged and was too infodumpy and wordy in a weird way.

Eleanor has no personal memories of her father, but she knows who he is. He is Hugo Harrison … the tech genius. She has started spying on her father’s new family and ends up being hired as the summer nanny for her half-brother. She now has an opportunity to learn more about her father, his family, and the life she didn’t have. Unfortunately, she must lie about who she is. Can Eleanor keep this secret from everyone, including her mother? What will she learn about her father and herself?

True Life in Uncanny Valley is a realistic fiction story that immerses readers in the thoughts and actions of a teen coming to terms with her own identity. The main character is also a comic fan who dabbles in comic art and each chapter begins with a comic panel. Although there are a few scenes that deal with sex, those sections are not graphic and would be appropriate for most teens. True Life of Uncanny Valley is a fun read for those who like realistic fiction, but it is not a quick read.

I love Deb Caletti's books even though I am an old woman and most (all?) of her books are YA. I loved the characters in this book and I think it is good for young adults to see that not everything on blogs, instas, or the Internet generally is true.--Eleanor quickly found out that Aurora was something way different than how she was portrayed online--she (her husband) even had a doppelganger to show how wonderful her life was, whereas really she was just like everyone else with highs and lows in her life. I particularly liked Eleanor's relationship with her little brother. It was so true--I could almost smell his baby smell! I also liked the references to The Agony and the Ecstasy a really old book that I read in high school or so and have always loved, maybe by making it cool more kids may pick it up and read it? The only thing that I really didn't like was the double story with the graphic novel, although I think that might be an age thing as I do not read graphic novels and a 16 year old might like the parallel story. I will definitely be buying this for my library and recommending it to my students.

thought-provoking and interesting piece of YA literature with a very dramatic main character. 4 stars. tysm for the arc. would recommend.

True Life in Uncanny Valley is a YA novel.

I was drawn in by the cover design and I like a good YA once in a while. I had not read books by Deb Caletti previously. (One of my favorite things about NetGalley is that it introduces me to new-to-me authors).

Eleanor's father has been missing from her life (for as long as she can remember). He is a tech celebrity and within driving distance. Eleanor has been spying on him. She is in the right place at the right place (or in the process of spying) and finds herself babysitting/nannying her 1/2 brother and working with Aurora (her step-mother).

Of course, being on the "inside" is completely different from what she had been observing at a distance.

The fabulous part of True Life in Uncanny Valley is how the characters are described, I really fell in love with several of the characters and would highly recommend this book.

416 pages (and it really didn't feel like it) with a publication date of March 18, 2025.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's for approving my request to read the advance read copy of True Life in Uncanny Valley in exchange for an honest review.

Eleanor and her sister have never known their father. Sure, they know who he is, since their mother has been very open about the long-term affair she had with tech genius Hugo Harrison. Eleanor's mother and sister are connected at the hip, often leaving Eleanor feeling left out and somewhat unwanted. Always curious, she follows her father and his new family (including a sweet toddler stepbrother) who are active on social media. When a chance meeting opens an opportunity for Eleanor to become her stepbrother's nanny for the summer, Eleanor accepts without considering future ramifications.

As Eleanor bonds with her stepbrother and stepmother, she catches glimpses and has chance encounters with her father. As she sees more of her father's world, she is also exposed to his current technological advance: a realistic robot who can be a perfect parent. Eleanor wrestles with feelings of loyalty, morality, honesty, and must confront her personal barriers in order to decide the future course of her life.

I loved this book! Many of my librarian friends immediately recognized the author's name, but this is the first book of hers I've read. I"m a fan! I love the topic, the realism of Eleanor's conflicting emotions, and the gentle confrontation of the question "how much tech is too much tech?" I also like that this books explores blended family dynamics and shows the conflicting emotions children have. I hope to see this on high school state reading award lists and highly recommend it for high school library collections.

This was SO GOOD!!!! I can see this story being made into a movie. This was not my usual genre but I really loved the story. It was quick and I couldn't out it down. Def read it if you have a chance.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me engaged and it only took a few days to read. I think this is going to be a good book club option for several clubs. I plan recommending to my book friends and I look forward to reading more by this author.

While this was an enjoyable read, it felt too rushed in the end. The allegory of the comic books was way too on the nose. Also, the lack of allergy explanation? Was it just to show that the female lead didn’t belong at home? If so, are her allergies returning?

I would definitely read others by this author in the hopes that they grow as they write. It felt like a debut.

I just finished True Life in Uncanny Valley, and wow, what a ride! Eleanor is trying to uncover the truth about her famous dad, Hugo Harrison, a tech genius whose AI creations are changing the world. She takes a summer nanny job for his son (her half-brother) in hopes of getting close to him, but she has to lie her way in.

This book really digs into identity, family secrets, and the blurred lines between reality and tech. Eleanor’s journey of self-discovery was so compelling, and I couldn’t put it down. There are plenty of twists, and the romance was an added bonus!

If you love books about family drama and figuring out who you really are, this one’s definitely worth checking out!

This book had a lot in it and I would have liked to see more character development with the friends and their book reviews, however the main storyline had enough going on that the friends were a nice support. Lots of gotcha moments that didn't happen the way they typically would, which I really liked. I really wanted the narcissistic behavior of the mom to be addressed better, but it was accurate. Overall it was an interesting story and I was satisfied with the ending!