A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) in Reading with Style

Jun 16, 2025 Steph rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebook-kindle, dystopia-utopia-apocalypse-future, lgbtqiap, series-finished, comfort-reads, first-read-in-2025, favorites-2025

a balm, a delight, a warm cup of tea and a soft blanket, just what i needed. my icy heart sometimes begins to feel immune to a certain type of tenderness, but this book allowed me to melt a bit.

feeling any sense of hope can be a struggle, so how refreshing to read about this particular future. robots and humans have had a reckoning, have separated peacefully, and humans have rebuilt in the most thoughtful and sustainable way they can. this is a future where we have become better, where we take c a balm, a delight, a warm cup of tea and a soft blanket, just what i needed. my icy heart sometimes begins to feel immune to a certain type of tenderness, but this book allowed me to melt a bit.

feeling any sense of hope can be a struggle, so how refreshing to read about this particular future. robots and humans have had a reckoning, have separated peacefully, and humans have rebuilt in the most thoughtful and sustainable way they can. this is a future where we have become better, where we take care of each other, and we value the little things.

in this gentle fable, a young monk named dex and a friendly robot named mosscap meet on their respective journeys. they travel, talk, and ask each other questions - small ones and enormous existential ones. there's joy in learning about one another. i love their conversations, and the emphasis that we are all creatures with different needs, and one's only obligation should be to continue existing.

dex is a monk of allalae, the god of comforts, and this book is woven together with comforts. the constant workings of nature and small things, the delight of a hot shower and a soft bed, the pleasure of a good meal - the narrative takes time to indulge in all these lovely details. not only is it a pleasure, but it's a reminder to slow down, that we are here to experience the world, and we deserve to enjoy doing so. i really enjoyed all the details.

the quiet nb rep is also super lovely!

i highlighted so many gems while reading, but here's one favorite:

A forest floor, the Woodland villagers knew, is a living thing. Vast civilizations lay within the mosaic of dirt: hymenopteran labyrinths, rodential panic rooms, life-giving airways sculpted by the traffic of worms, hopeful spiders' hunting cabins, crash pads for nomadic beetles, trees shyly locking toes with one another. It was here that you'd find the resourcefulness of rot, the wholeness of fungi. Disturbing these lives through digging was a violence - though sometimes a needed one, as demonstrated by the birds and white skunks who brashly kicked the humus away in necessary pursuit of a full belly.
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May 18, 2022 Ann rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2022, rws, ebook-owned

Wow. What a surprising novella. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that.
Humans colonized space, and (on one planet at least), robots woke up. No one knows why, but they did and they chose to live separately from humanity. In a frankly shocking turn, humans not only did not go to war with the robots over this, but created what seems to be a pretty utopian society.
Yet Sibling Dex is not satisfied… and it’s not because there’s something dark bubbling…. No, they are just human and humans a ...more

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Sep 09, 2022 Tanya Patrice rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, novella

This novella was different. The writing was beautiful ... listen to the audiobook and you'll get why this is almost lyrical and smooth in style. The story slowly meanders as it follows a tea monk who ends up in a first meeting situation with a robot. The World building is vivid and my favorite thing about this book. But it took me sometime to get into this. Where is this going was what I kept asking myself - do let me do you a favor and answer that question ... nowhere really. Instead, just enjo ...more

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Jul 14, 2021 Megan added it

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction

Exceedingly gentle, softly philosophical. Chambers is sometimes too twee for me, and this verged pretty close to my line of tolerance in the first couple of chapters, but for the most part, this hit the sweet spot of capturing both the smallness and the immenseness of humanity & science & history without tipping over into cloyingness.

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May 21, 2022 Steven rated it really liked it

Shelves: novella

A tea monk meets a wild built robot. Intersting concept that turned into a cozy novella. I love the way becky chambers builds her worlds. Revealing the world as the character makes decisions instead of info dumping. This is a good way to give little things for the reader to ponder. Such as the role of purpose and stress. What should our interactions with nature be. The nature of fear and where it comes from. For a small cosy book it packs alot of ideas in it . Also, i wish tea monks were real!

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