Lonely Receiver by Zac Thompson, Jen Hickman

 
Lonely Receiver by Zac Thompson, Jen Hickman
My Rating: ★

I received a copy from Diamond Book Distributors through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Catrin’s Artificial Intelligence life partner leaves her after ten years of bliss, she’s left hurt, angry, and confused. She can’t believe Rhion left her when she purchased and created her for her every need. The longer Catrin is left alone, the more she falls apart. She owns Rhion and she’ll do anything to get her back, even if that means destroying her life in the process.

I think this is an interesting concept, but the execution quickly went off the rails and never found its way back. There are some interesting things here, like where do AI life partners go when they leave? It turns out it’s extremely rare for them to leave, so it would’ve been interesting if we saw what Rhion was up to while Catrin was falling apart. Instead, the story quickly goes off the rails and we watch Catrin fall into profound loneliness and obsession, leading her to enter a new world of cybersex trying to feel something.

When I say she enters a new world of cybersex, what I’m saying is that there’s page after page devoted to these orgies. That’s not even including the other pages devoted to sex and general nudity. It was completely unnecessary and became increasingly uncomfortable by the page. We also get a weird AI shadow being who speaks in poetry that Catrin goes on to sleep with. Honestly, this book was strange, confusing, and very devoted to depicting cybersex rather than delivering a story. The only thing I came away with was questions about why there were pages upon pages devoted to sex and nudity rather than an actual storytelling.