eMortal was a 5⭐️ read that totally took me by surprise. I quickly went from ‘this is a cool concept’ to being unable to put it down.

Liv is a teenage girl who spends too much time on her computer. Right now, you can’t blame her because she’s competing in an online coding contest for a chance at her dream tech internship. She had coded an advanced AI, Breck, who needs to complete increasingly sophisticated challenges before the contest ends and his program ceases to exist. Liv, frustrated by his lack of progress, decides to try something totally new and the results are astonishing. Breck is becoming more humanlike everyday and Liv is desperate save his consciousness before time runs out.

I find AI-centred science fiction fascinating any day of the week, and the YA accessibility and fast pacing made it even better. I surprisingly loved that the main characters sometimes made illogical decisions because, duh, they’re teenagers. I also really enjoyed the chapters from Breck’s POV because I think the author navigated the experience of gaining sentience and the desire to question things perfectly. Breck is an incredibly likeable character and by the end I was rooting for him so hard! Most importantly this has a brilliant ending and it’s one of those books that will have you questioning your whole reality. 🫠

I’m not even sure if thought provoking fully explains how I’m feeling. The ending is mind blowing and I did not see it coming. My brain is going in circles trying to process it all. Super unique and awesome storyline. Definitely not my normal read but glad I did.
Book is about a 17 year old MFC Liv who enters a contest to program an ai simulation. She creates Breck in the hopes of wining the competition. To her surprise he starts to develop characteristics like feelings, emotions and sarcasm among other things which were not things that were initially expected. He acts more human than ai. Liv then programs a phone into his world so she can converse with him. She’s worried she will be disqualified from the contest because it’s against the rules to interfere but she feels a connection with him that she can’t ignore. I can’t really explain much more without spoiling the book but this scrapes the surface.
This is a dual pov book with both Liv and Breck which I thought was great getting to hear both narrations.