With all honesty, I feel as though I was a bit misled by the synopsis of this novel and was given something a little different. Michaels certainly asks what to make of the relationship between AI and the arts (specifically poetry) through his elderly poet protagonist, Marian, who is invited to co-write a poem with a poetry AI bot named Charlotte. However, I wasn’t expecting so much of the novel to also think deeply about family relations (particularly motherhood), which I’m not entirely against, but it also wasn’t what I signed up for when I picked up this book. Unfortunately, even without this theme around motherhood, I found that this was a pretty uninspiring novel.

I think the core issue is that most of the characters around Marian were rather underdeveloped, almost as if they were only there to serve as vehicles to get certain ideas across or as plot devices. I want to say the most obvious instance of this was Morel, who seemed to be representative of anti-capitalist ideas and a critical voice. Another obvious example is Marian’s son, Courtney, who really seems to just serve as a plot device more than anything. (Also, I’m not entirely sure how he’s so well-adjusted as an adult despite essentially being abandoned by his mother at a formative age?) These faults become especially apparent due to the book being (theoretically) more driven by Marian’s interactions with other characters. In addition, the attention Michaels wanted to give to the relationship between AI and the arts left a lot to be desired. Questions were asked, but there was never an in-depth exploration or reflection of the complexities of this relationship.

I’m also not entirely sure how to feel about the tender portrayal of the relationship between Marian and Charlotte. I did think the way Michaels approached their interactions stylistically to be an interesting one. Overall, though, as someone who has very mixed feelings that generally lean toward negative about AI (especially within the arts), I was rather put off by all of it.