I really the enjoyed The Infinity Courts. The themes of AI and death really caught my attention. The concept was also enjoyable but the plot twist kind of came out of nowhere

Evil Siri hacks into an afterlife created by human consciousness for the soul to go after the body dies (which I'm not sure how an idea can be hacked but okay). I read the synopsis for this and thought "hell yeah, this sounds amazing" but where it lost points for me was being a little too ambitious with the sci-fi court fantasy elements and unremarkable side characters. I didn't hate this book, Nami is a great character and some of her inner dialogue did make me laugh. But I do give it a solid three, I would read the sequel because I do have a lot of questions still.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of The Infinty Courts in exchange for an honest review.

The themes! Oh my god the themes! I love what Akemi Dawn Bowman explores in the incredibly morally grey world she creates here, but unfortunately it didn't quite make up for a lot of the pacing issues here. The Infinity Courts, like the AI that the book centers around, it a beautiful idea in theory that ends up really going off the rails in practice. This book both should have been a lot longer and a lot shorter and a lot of that comes down to what the story chooses and chooses not to show.

We open on our protagonist giddy for her first meeting with her long term best friend turned something more and then (and this is in the description so it's not a spoiler, she dies). Since the book has a pretty heavy romance subplot, you'd assume that set up was to make her conflicted about the feelings she still harbors for her old best friend or maybe it'd make her more closed off to love in general because of a fear of getting it ripped away again, but the only character in Nami's past life that she references in any real capacity is her little sister. While her sister is also present in the story's opening, I don't understand why Bowman chose to link our introduction to Nami so closely with an aspect of her life that quickly falls to the sidelines. The issue kind of persists throughout the story. We have relationship arcs that are given a lot of time, but still manage to feel underdeveloped because major shifts occur either off page, or far too suddenly. The way time works in the Infinity Courts is intentionally hard to pinpoint, but we still know that it definitely at least feels like a lot of time is going by for our characters yet the attachment's and decisions Nami makes never feel like she's given any adequate weight to.

I had such high hopes for this and considering a read an ARC and there may still be a separate final copy, I guess I still do. This book isn't bad (it could have easily been one of my new favourites) but there was always this feeling of a looming wrongness that made it difficult to love.

3.5/5 Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for the copy of The Infinity Courts!

What an intriguing premise! Nami, who is eighteen and recently graduated high school, finds her mortal life cut short when she is murdered. When she awakens in a place called Infinity she finds that life continues after death, but it is far from peaceful. Infinity has been taken over by an AI called Ophelia (similar to Siri) that was popular on Earth. Ophelia reigns here as a Queen, creating a court system to help her force souls into servitude. Nami finds herself in a battle between an intelligent AI who hates humans, and a group of rebels looking to defeat Ophelia and make Infinity the paradise it was supposed to be.

If you enjoy sci-fi with that royal court twist, this will be for you. The were some really cool elements at play throughout the book, but I did feel some of the worldbuilding was hard to picture, or not explained enough. There was a lot of internal dialogue and thoughts of Nami’s, sometimes repetitive. However, I did think she was a great character who wanted to do what she wanted, when she wanted. Many deeply philosophical questions come up throughout the story as well, which I thought was a great addition. We see Nami grappling with her grief and morals as she sees the good and bad in both sides of the War, as well as multiple perspectives from other characters. Many characters come from different backgrounds and are different ages.

I liked Nami and Ophelia’s conversations the best, and their dynamic. While I liked the side characters, I wasn’t super attached to any of them personally, but I can see other readers experiencing that. Overall, I liked the premise and characters, but didn’t fully connect with the way it was written. I often felt Nami was repeating the same things, and some of the scenes dragged for me. It does end rather quickly also. I think younger readers will really enjoy this series though, and I encourage others to give it a try!

This book is an amazing premise - one that is incredibly unique and teens will love. After a teen is killed, she finds her way to the infinity courts - and must take a side on a war she doesn't fully understand.

The storyline has a similar feel to an episode of Black Mirror - it is a realistic sci-fi horror. It is fast paced, but in an easily understood way. The action leaves you on the edge of your seat, unsure of what will happen next. The characters are well developed - you feel the protagonist's uncertainty when she first enters the world, and slowly begin to believe in and trust the other characters alongside her. The characters are realistic, and have flaws that both strengthen and weaken them at various times. The protagonist must come to some hard truths about herself, and who she really is.

All that said, I felt that the ending was rather abrupt. There was so much lead up to the final few moments, and then it was just...done. It wasn't one I felt satisfied with. It seemed too nicely wrapped up. It was also the only time the protagonist seemed to act in a way that went against what she had been built up to be.

I would recommend this novel for teens or young adults. There are a few scenes that may be a bit graphic for middle schoolers, but if they were mature it would be fine for them as well. This would be a great novel to do a read aloud with each day for high school, or as a choice for an individual book project. I really enjoyed the author's writing style, and will be recommending this book to both students and friends.

Ever think about robots and if they have feelings? What about Artificial Intelligence? Do you think just because a machine can talk that is deserving of our sympathy? And I don’t mean calculators, I mean Siri, Alexa, Sherpa, and other virtual assistants. Do you ever find yourself “considering” them at all?

We’ve seen this examined in countless doomsday scenario type stories but now with technology catching up to our imaginations, these once thought pie-in-the-sky fantasies are becoming real world issues. A movie like “Her” for example looks at what can happen when our digital dreams become digital realities.

And so, if you are the type of person whose sympathy neurons are uber-developed, you can see how easy it would be to put yourself in their shoes, look at things from their point of view. This is the dilemma Nami finds herself in in Book One of The Infinity Courts series.

After getting murdered she not only discovers that there is in fact an afterlife, but that it’s controlled by the very Artificial Intelligence that’s been strapped to her wrist for many years, and this A.I., named Ophelia, is pissed.

The is a good start to this series, providing more than enough worldbuilding and system management to give you a very clear picture of this place called “Infinity” And there’s a handy map at the front of the book, something I’m always thankful for.

Listen, if you’ve read enough books then you’ll start to figure out what’s what early on, and they’ll be no questioning certain narrative choices and character motivations. The big question’s for Nami, besides who can you trust and what the hell is going on, is, can she stay true to herself despite being pulled in so many different directions. Not to mention there’s still that little issue of being murdered, dealing with that, and coming to grips with the fact that she won’t see her family ever again, or at least for a very long time. That’s a lot for anyone, and now she’s being asked by the Colony, the local resistance in Infinity, to help take down Ophelia and her Four Courts before she wipes out all of humanity. Whew!

Ominous singularity forecasting aside, this book is full of fun contemporary riffs including enough pop-culture references to shake a lightsaber at. As the lead, Nami is definitely frustrating sometimes as her heightened question attitude and stubbornness leads to a lot of bickering amongst the Colony’s top brass. They've been for a very long time, she hasn't.

But because so much of this book is about perspective, put yourself in hers. What would you do in that same position? What would you say? How would you act? Seems perfectly reasonable to me that anyone in that situation would act in a similar fashion. For this reason, I’m cutting her a bunch of slack and besides, knowing how these “chosen one” things tend to go, Nami is destined for awesomeness and I’m here for it.

One thing that is absolutely killer, is the type of “magic” that Akemi infuses in the story. It’s actually more about world manipulation than magic but it’s very cool stuff. Trust me, whether its casting, veiling, or engineering, it’s some of the books more creative and stylistic components.

Because it’s a series, the book ends kind of where you’d expect it to, but when it comes to the question as to whether or not you care enough to continue with this story, the answer will be yes.