Set in the future on the west coast of the United States, Companions have been created and leased into the mass market. Companions are machines that are given human consciousness - the human consciousness of a formerly living person. The Companions vary in quality, some being a little more than a tin can and others looking and seeming human to the untrained eye. They are “command driven” and allegedly have safeguards in place to limit their abilities and keep them from rebelling or harming their human hosts.

At the same time we meet Lilac, a companion, we learn that California is in a state of quarantine. Scientists developed and unleashed a series of unnamed viruses that have wreaked havoc on the human race and terrified the remaining people.

Because companions are created from human consciousness, many of the companions can remember their own deaths. Lilac is one such companion and she knows she was murdered. Defying her programming, Lilac travels the coast to find and confront her murderer.

The novel spans years - toward the end of the quarantine to a decade later. We see how the companions shift from a commodity to something the wealthy choose to do to themselves in order to stay “young” forever.

We’re introduced to many characters, many companions in many forms, and many storylines. Most feel overall forgettable and only briefly seem to intersect with the others but perhaps this was intentional to create more of a manufactured, machine feel.

Overall, I found the premise incredibly intriguing. I’ve never read anything like this and I can envision it becoming a future Black Mirror episode. However, for much of the novel I felt confused by the author’s vagueness, over abundance of characters introduced way too late, and the numerous, undeveloped storylines.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me this ARC of The Companions by Katie M. Flynn.

In a world where a virus reeks havoc on society, forcing people inside, boredom and loneliness are combated by what is called "The Companion program." The idea is that people who have passed away can have their personality downloaded and put into whatever machine is afforded to them. The lucky (and wealthy) get to keep loved ones as their companions, but the less fortunate are rented out to homes, often treated poorly and subjected to abuse and boredom. One such companion, after escaping her unkind home, seeks out the woman who, long ago, was responsible for killing her. This sets of a whole chain of events.

I just could not get into this. It was way too all over the place for me, and the story was a bit weak. I needed to be invested in the characters a lot quicker, and instead I felt like I was bombarded with way too many people to keep track of, and way more info than I needed.

Sadly this book just wasn't for me; both the characters and the overall plot felt mundane and uninteresting, whilst the story seemed to just drag on and on.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book , but I found the back-and-forth , the time swapping chapters , and while some of the characters were very interesting, others were not easy to relate to at all.

I got about 40% finished , and then gave up because I just wasn't interested enough to keep trying to slog through it . Maybe this book just wasn't for me . I think the author has great promise and will try another of their books some other time

Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of The Companions.

I'm not an avid reader of sci-fi dystopian but I was excited when my request was approved.

The premise is a strong but familiar one; after a virus has decimated most of the population, survivors are sequestered in their homes. The wealthy have one reprieve, the ability to upload their consciousness before death into a 'companion.' The rest are not so lucky.

Readers are introduced to Lilac, a rare companion because she is a First Gen model, which means she's not like all the others. She has a purpose. To find her murderer.

Now that pulled me in right away: a sci-fi mystery with an unusual protagonist set in a post-apocalyptic environment?

Count me in!

The chapters started off strong, but something got lost along the way.

First, there was a lack of world building.

How did this virus affect the population? Where did it start?

Who is Metis, this multinational corporation that owns the 'companions?'

What kind of hate and fear does a companion engender when meeting humans?

Can a companion and human fall in love?

Second, there are one too many characters, which is a tricky endeavor, regardless of genre.

I think the author wanted to offer a range of POVs that all have a stake in the business of the companions but this was hard to sustain because I never felt connected to anyone and I forgot who was who and what their purpose of the story was.

Third, years pass and tumultuous events happen off page so when they are referred to by a character, the emotional impact is lost and readers lack exposition and understanding as to why a particular character is acting this way or headed to a certain destination.

There was so much potential with this premise; the world building, the character development, the mystery behind Lilac's death, the bond between companions and humans, the fear and hate some humans would have for these for the companions and the existential questions they would pose: does a companion have a soul?

The writing is good, but the lack of a cohesive narrative and strong characters made The Companions a disjointed and confusing read.

I read 1/3 of this and then couldn't convince myself to keep reading. It was too confusing to keep what seemed like several different short stories in mind.

This book started great, but went downhill fast for me. I was intrigued by the premise and the first few chapters of low Lilac, a former human teenager now with her conciousness trapped in a machine designed to serve a family, who finds out she can defy orders and run away. The book continued revealing a bit of what life was like for her as a human vs. as a machine and soon we were joined by other characters, some humans and some machines.

The book really went off the rails when it looped in so many different stories and characters. Details were given on things that didn't seem relevant till much later when readers might have forgotten about or no longer cared about them. The author teased things but didn't follow through. For example, she mentioned several times that the humans and machines could be intimate with one another, but didn't really put in scenes with that, if you're going to mention it over and over again, have the scenes already.

I found myself skimming a lot. I just stopped caring about which characters met up, which conciousnesses were put in their third, fourth, etc. body and even the mystery of how the original character was betrayed which lead to her death was no longer appealing. The ending was a let down and felt like it was missing a few pages.

This was almost a DNF for me, 2 stars as it had some of my attention, if I could give 1.5 instead I would.

Maybe this book is not meant for me. I got so hyped up regarding the description of this one but I am hugely disappointed.

The first chapter started out good but yes, the chapters are so terribly long and it feels like the read was just dragging on and on. New character introduction and the various events described are somewhat too mundane considering it's a sci-fi dystopian kind of read. Considering the main theme tackled that is regarding quarantine, I couldn't see much relevance regarding it in the plot build up. The characters are too mundane for such kind of read. And the plot gets really weak. The characters seemed so bored and uninterested. I lost interest in the book totally at around 44 per cent.
The last few chapters are really slow and the ending was no surprise.

Sadly, this one is not for me.

Thank you #NetGalley for the book #TheCompanions in exchange of an honest review.

In this weirdly fantastic view of a bleak and frighting future, death is the least of your worries. Californians are under quarantine, forbidden to leave their homes and high rise apartments. But the dead are free to roam, not as zombies, but something even more dreadful. The wealthy are having their consciousness uploaded before they die, so they can stay with their families. The rest of the population isn’t so lucky, their personalities, their very essence, transferred into mechanized bodies that become the property of the Metis Corporation. They become virtual slaves, forced to do whatever their new “owners” want, until one teenage girl discovers she still has the will to fight and resist. While Lilac goes on the hunt for the woman who murdered her, other “companions” also throw off their bonds of servitude, looking for revenge and a second chance at “life”. If you aren’t scared by the thought of AI, you will be after reading this wickedly clever novel