I requested this book after seeing Mary Harrington's review on her Substack. I am sympathetic to the ideas behind the book; in seeking to alleviate human suffering, biotech threatens to eliminate humanity altogether. The aspirations of Silicon Valley are, in fact, anti-human and should be resisted. (Not with violence! But in other legal ways.) That being said, I found this book very hard to read because of how dark entering into Josh's preparations is. I almost DNF'd about a third of the way through, but wanted to see the plot to the end. None of the characters were particularly likeable - not that that is necessary for a good book - but it made it hard to hook into someone to keep me going. Emma was a frustrating manic pixie dream girl; I think she could have been more of a realized Zoomer-esque character instead of ~the most smartest unique girl who ever lived~. The last few chapters when Josh visits the church and explores those ideas was a highlight. The twist that the whole thing was a psy-op by the AI was telegraphed but still satisfying. I also wanted to briefly mention to the publisher that there were numerous Britishisms attributed to Josh that should be looked for and edited out ("A&E", "adverts", "in hospital") since he is supposed to be a native Californian.

this book was so good! I love reading about and thinking about these types of potential future issues with all of the possibilities of AI in our current world. It definitely makes you think, and it is very broad, no one knows exactly what will happen.

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!