DNF at 30%. The plot, characters, and drama all seem to revolve around s3x? Like, it's constant and unpleasant and awkward. Warnings for language, violence, and explicit content that is sometimes violent and evil. Thanks to Netgalley and Blackstone Audio for an audiobook to voluntarily review.

Interesting premise but the dialogue was terrible and came across cheesy for the most part - which then made the book not so enjoyable.

The sex stuff seemed over the top and I failed to see the point of it over and over again.

The AI issues glossed over were interesting but not fleshed out and then there was all the info dumping style of writing that kind of felt like a cop out.

The action was decent so the pacing was quick to start which I love .. and then it goes so fast that it’s just chaotic.

This books had a slow start, nice mid section and a hilariously bad ending. Everyone went googoogaga and started spewing 'i love yous' and clichés tag0-lines left, right and center. It struggles to decide whether it wants to be serious or cloak everything in humor.

The tech had some plot holes. Musk and Bezos were name-dropped but somehow the biggest and baddest machines are all analog? Electric cars accelerate much faster than their combustion counterparts but somehow in a world where Tesla and SpaceX are a thing, electric vehicles are not?

There were more such points but to be honest, i didn't pay the closest attention while reading. The story just didn't grab hold of me and by the time the cliches and cheesy lines came around I was ready for it to be over.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Grand Theft AI by James Cox
⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 305 / Genre: Sci-Fi
Narrator: Troy Baker

Ahhh…I think I keep choosing books like these because I think they’re going to be like Ready Player One and Two. This one was not like that at all. It wasn’t as bad as Partition: Critical Era by Kevin Kane, but it was similarly dark. We’re in a future world where technology has taken over in an ugly and sinister way thanks to humanity’s greed and weakness. Sex and drugs are grossly abused. I do not enjoy reading about a future like this and therefore did not like this book at all.

I really think NetGalley needs to adjust their DNF policies and allow people to opt out of reviewing books once they realize that it’s not what they thought it would be without it affecting their Feedback Ratio. It’s not fair to make the reviewer suffer through a book they know isn’t for them and it’s not fair to the author to have low ratings due to the reviewer’s personal bias. My rating has nothing to do with the author’s skill or creativity. The book just wasn’t for me. So although this is a 2-star rating for me, I will give it 3 stars as I think someone who likes these kinds of stories would probably enjoy this book.

Thank you @NetGalley for the advanced copy of this audiobook. Troy Baker did a great job narrating. Please change your DNF policy.

Grand Theft AI by James Cox has a lot of things I do love.

I've always been fascinated by non human characterrs, be it Data or The Doctor from Star Trek or Lovelace from Becky Chamebrs books, so when I saw this title, I knew I had to read it!

The near enough future felt realistic and easy to believe. AI is just starting out, and I can definitely see us heading to some of the more horrible outcomes this book is showing. It's a grim story that features quite some potential triggers.

I quite enjoyed the tone early on, and the slight mystery about what happened in the past was quick to draw me in.

In the middle the story did feel a bit slow for my personal taste, and I caught myself skim reading a few times. Luckily it did pickk up again and I was hooked again for the end.

The reason why I was a bit less immersed inteh middle might have been more due to personal taste, than any fault of the book. We get to spend quite some time with someone who is best compared to a sort of crime lord, and I simply never was into those type of stories. Be it Godfather or similar, that's just not my preferred topic. So when quite a lot of the story revolved mostly around that, it lost me a bit. When it was more about the main characters planned heist, solving some mytseries, trying fort revenge, I was fully hooked again.

This is the main reason I went for 4 stars, so if oyu like that type of story, it might easily be a full 5 star to you!

I really enjoyed the rest of the book, be it the plot, the setting, the characters, the prose or the overall tone and voice. So even though it wasn't a perfect match for me, it was still a really good read!

This book is absolutely great! Non-stop thrill ride the whole way through. Really enjoyed the not too distant future where augmented reality and human upgrades are everywhere. I liked the tie ins/references to recent events. Really cool book! My favorite sci-if since Timeline by Crichton!

I will say the first 20% of this book was fantastic! n general the premise of the story, pacing, and character depth was written and explored really well. After the first quarter however, the writing started to become more crude. With more scenes talking about & depicting brothels/prostitutions - albeit with robots. The more the writing and story turned I began to loose interest and intrigue. In general I do not enjoy reading spice, so when a book has it, especially when it had to do with prostitution, it just takes me out of the story and not enjoy it any more. For those reasons, and a few others, I decided to not finish this book. I did want to DNF it around the 45% mark but pushed through to see if it would change. I got about 60% of the way through this book before finally deciding to not finish.
I am never sure how to rate a book I didn't finish. I will give it a 2/5 as the story idea / premise was intriguing. I am sure others will enjoy this novel, it just wasn't for me.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.