This seemed to be a modern day, adult version of Beauty and the Beast. I found the premise interesting in that apparently robots are a fully integrated part of the human race even taking jobs such as gas attendants, police and others that were once the sole property of humans. A perfect set up when you have a man, who has been told by his parents he has a life threatening auto-immune disorder, cannot interact with the outside world for fear of catching even a benign virus that could kill him. Therefore he needs an AI robot to teach him how to interact with humanity as he’s been cut off from them his entire life.

The only thing I didn’t like was it would’ve been nice for there to be some kind of explanation as to how human society became so interdependent and integrated with robots. Maybe I’ve just seen the Terminator movies one too many times but we’re constantly being told the threat AI can impose upon the human race, a threat which is addressed in this book, so I’m curious what precipitating event occurred to make the population decide the threat of AI taking over human society was less than a repeat of the event that started the integration.

I found the ideas unique. The full character development took the entire length of the book so at times I felt frustrated not understanding why the characters were acting the way they did, what motivated them, but I kept with it because her writing style flows very well and makes it an easy to read book. I was glad I did because by the conclusion Rita Stradling had full developed her characters so I understood why they each acted the way they did, who they really were and what kind of people they are. Even her AI was given enough personality and identity so you could end up hating a ‘robot’.

Her dialogue was very conversationalist in that it flowed naturally and felt realistic.

Her sex scenes at first creeped me out because it’s described as a human having sex with a robot and now all kinds of weird boundaries and ethical/moral dilemmas are being crossed. However, the way she wrote them was so steamy my husband woke up a very happy person this morning …. :-)

I wish there had been more description about what their society looked like and how it functioned but she did a very good job giving you an idea of what the main setting, the tower, looked like and how it would be to live there. The only detail about the tower that I didn't understand was she stated at one point the food was 'printed' which with our current understanding and use of technology printing something does not make it edible so I'm vastly curious how their society managed to create 'printed' food, how is it different from normal food, how are humans capable of digesting it, etc.

Overall I felt it was well written and it definitely gives you a lot to think about when it comes to the direction society is moving towards. We may be far off from having AI and robots take over but everyday there are more companies using technology to replace humans in even the most basic of jobs. It just takes baby steps…..

So much fun to read! A quick, steamy (yep, mature content), perfect blend (for me anyway) of a retelling of a fairy tale (Beauty & the Beast), science fiction (near future filled with automatons), and romance.

Alainn’s father is a genius with a gambling problem. To save him from prison, Alainn switches places with her robot lookalike Rose to become a companion for a rich, scarred recluse. Their relationship blossoms (in a weird way since he think’s Alainn’s a robot, but I’m not complaining), but then enter a murderous robot, and action ensues.

While the storyline isn’t completely solid, Ensnared was a highly entertaining book, and I’d be more than happy to read more of the author’s works.

2.5/3 stars.
The premise of this sounded right up my alley: fairytale retelling set in a dystopian world. I loved The Lunar Chronicles and I suppose I was expecting something similar in standalone form.

Sadly, this didn't really live up to what I would have liked. There's a lack of world-building that had me questioning a lot of decisions the characters make - Lorccan believing that the outside world is too dangerous too go out into because of the possibility of becoming sick, for example. Has a terrible virus taken down a lot of the human race, or something? There's no real background for this explained at any point.

In addition, the use of robots and AIs ("automatons") is commonplace, yet there seems to be nothing they <i>can't</i> do, which I found a little odd. The robots had personalities and some had the ability to overwrite their ethics codes, giving some of them apparently limitless power with no morals. And no "OFF" button...

As for the romantic aspect: I would like to have seen more about the aftermath of the big 'reveal' between Alainn and Lorccan. There were a few too many loose ends by the close of the book for me to feel really satisfied afterwards.