The Companions by Katie M. Flynn

 

Initially, the premise of this book reminded me a lot of the TV show, Upload. After a deadly virus forces everyone into quarantine, people start renting Companions, the consciousnesses of dead people that have been saved and reuploaded into animatronics. Some of them are incredibly sophisticated, but others are low-tech with exposed chassises and, like, hooks for hands.

The first couple chapters were really great and at first, I was surprised it had such a low rating on GR. But then I kept reading and kept getting hit with different POVs. Some people like multiple narrators but this book is on the shorter side and it felt like every time I was starting to get a handle on who character X was and relating to them, the author switched to the next vignette-style chapter with another POV. The POVs also mostly sounded the same to me.

I think maybe the author tried to do too much with THE COMPANIONS. It's a pandemic novel, an AI novel, a novel about life after death, a novel about rebellions, a novel about class-- and there just isn't really time to explore all of these topics, so it ends up feeling kind of disorganized and rushed, in my opinion. The author had some great ideas. It just didn't really gel.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

2 to 2.5 out of 5 stars