Review - "Willful Machines"

Willful Machines
by Tim Floreen
rating:☆☆
published: 20th October 2015
spoilers? yes

Goodreads

I don’t think I chose to be gay, if that’s what you mean. In fact, I didn’t choose a lot of things. Like being the son of the president. Or coming to Inverness. Or even being in the closet, really. All in all, I’d say I have about as much free will as an espresso maker.

As far as I can tell, I'm in a minority for disliking this one. I was really looking forward to it, too, not least because the evil robot was called Charlotte and I have a weakness for books where characters share my name.

I think part of my issue was that I kept comparing it, unintentionally, to Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, which, despite the slightly iffy title, is an amazing book about a robot apocalypse (which not enough people have read, therefore I will always recommend. Please go read it). Willful Machines is, obviously, a completely different book, but I always have trouble with comparing books that sound similar (see, The Wrath and the Dawn vs A Thousand Nights).

It wasn't that this book was badly written or anything. I mean, once everything got going, I enjoyed it well enough. But it took a while for everything to get going, and I don't really have patience for books like that most of the time (there are, of course, exceptions, but this was not one of them).

Also, the relationship was very very much instalove. I'm pretty sure they had like, 3 conversations before they decided to come out with the "I love you"s. Sorry, but I just can't believe it. That Nico was in fact a robot was pretty obvious too, which was annoying.

I liked that it was a story about a gay main character without it being a story about coming out though. Even if there was a slightly awkward bit at the end with Lee confessing he loved Nico. Calm down, boyo. You've known this guy for what? A month, maximum?

Basically, I was pretty disappointed, especially after hearing so many rave reviews (it has an average rating among my Goodreads friends of ~4.3, so I had high hopes), but that's life I guess.