01 read in 2025
After a treasured TikTok recommendation from Tell the Bees, I put Annie Bot on my tbr list. When my boyfriend asked me what books I’ve been wanting, I sent him a text with a few titles; his family ended up getting me Annie Bot, the book about a sex robot becoming more sentient, for Christmas. And so the irony began.
I’m really happy I decided to start this the week that I did: during the California wildfires, after my boyfriend got out of the hospital for emergency surgery, right after the 12hr TikTok ban went in and out of effect, the day of the inauguration, the year of women having sex with robots more than men. Need a good ol 200 pager to get me through. And this book was a much needed respite from the man-thoughts clogging my feed. In fact, it was a way to completely plug into my own thoughts as a woman, my feelings about my heterosexuality in relation to…whatever the hell is going on right now.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. I really liked how the inner monologue was written and the fact that it was in 3rd person. I also really appreciated the way that I, as the reader, was learning about Stellas along the way; we weren’t with Annie and Doug from the start, we were thrown into their relationship (either through Annie meeting Stella or Roland’s arrival) and had to find our way through. Even though Annie had been autodidactic for a while at the start of the novel, the audience joins her at a pivotal moment in her machine learning, the moment of her encounter/assault/secret. And I will say, I considered her sex with Roland an assault. I mean, one could make the argument that because of the fact of Annie being a sex robot (Cuddle Bunny as the AI is named in the story), most of her experiences with sex could be considered assaults in some form. I guess that’s the ultimate crux of the book: if eternal consent is built into your hardware, is it actually consent?
✧🝞⋆⚖
There were only a few things I thought were lacking in the writing; one being that I wanted more of other Stellas. I wanted more Delta!! (Almost tried to make a Delta Work joke there but I refrained.) I wanted more of Stella, who Annie met at the tune-up facility. Even though I do understand that Annie’s life, and therefore the book, revolves around Doug, I would’ve loved more conversations between different systems.
I also wanted a bit more clarity on the race aspect of Stellas and Annie in particular. I go back and forth on this because it makes sense that they wouldn’t exactly build critical race theory into the neurosystem of a sexbot…and how would Annie even contextualize her “race” within her relationship with Doug since he’s a white man and wouldn’t be educating her much. But I think the relationship of Annie to Gwen, Doug’s Black ex who we learn broke up with him for possibly cultural differences, could’ve been fleshed out more. I would’ve liked more direct evidence either way of Gwen, as a person from his past, influencing Doug’s treatment of Annie. I suppose that could be woven throughout though and we’re supposed to interpret the entire relationship through that lens, but nonetheless I find that aspect so fascinating (as someone who has been in a relationship DEEPLY influenced by his ex).
🝞✧⚖⋆
Part of what makes this book so special is how relatable it is. And sorry if that’s cringe city! But such a big part of being in a straight relationship as a woman, I guess as an in-the-know woman, is constantly analyzing “am I acting like this because I love him or because I’m conditioned to act this way? am I acting like his mom? am I not taking care of him enough? am I taking care of him too much? is he taking care of me? who’s in control?” I almost feel like Carrie when she’s stressing out about farting in front of Big, when she says she wears little outfits around him and has to be Perfect all the time. Even in a healthy, happy, supportive, equal relationship, it’s impossible not to feel the weight of patriarchal expectations on your back.
The part of Annie Bot that cracked me up the most, and the part that had me texting my boyfriend “why are guys like this” (to which he replied with a very Correct and Supportive answer), was when Doug makes Annie take off 4 pounds (tried to do TEN) and then says he loves watching her eat a burger. Such a perfect encapsulation of straight-man-brainrot.
Also throughout the whole book, I couldn’t help thinking about a YA book I read in high school, A Girl Called Fearless. It’s not groundbreaking, but being that it came out in 2014, it feels a bit ahead of its time. Not a book about sexbots by any means, but a book about what it means to be a young woman (teenager in fact) used and sold for one purpose. Which is sexbot-adjacent, I’d say.
⋆✧🝞⚖
I have already offered to lend this book to my mom and want my friends and bf to read it, so that’s a win if there ever was one. Thanks mother-in-law!