I really wanted to love this book. The plot line and the premise promised to be fascinating and original. I had always wanted to find a story between an IA that had achieved singularity and a human being. But the book as is needs work. The character of Dart, the AI, was not portrayed well. He read too much like another human boy. He said his legs went mushy when he saw the girl. It's hard to read that knowing we are talking about an IA. But I think with some revisions, this story could really come to life.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of Automaton Nation in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to like this book, but I found it very hard to get through. I don’t normally DNF books so I pushed through it, hoping it would get better. I also don’t like giving negative reviews at all, but I really struggled with this book.

I found I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and found most of the dialogue very strange. The only character I somewhat liked was Dat, but even chapters told from his perspective were rough at times. Val’s character was hard to like. I didn’t believe that the relationship between Val and Dat could escalate as fast as it did, with them thinking they were soulmates so early in the book. There wasn't enough time for them to get to know each other and develop intimate feelings. Val severed her relationship with her parents at the young age of 17, because her parents didn't approve of her relationship with a robot, even after everything her family went through with her father being hospitalized right at the start of the book.

The last few chapters had way too much content that happened too quickly, with many of the characters dying. It was confusing and very sudden. The idea of this book had a lot of promise, but I feel it just didn’t deliver.