What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
► UNSOLVED: One specific book
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YA? Sci-Fi. Girl is raised by robot/ android in a city with escalating tensions between humans and androids. Read 2020-2021. Spoilers ahead.
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Kinda sounds like a mashup of Frost and Klara and the Sun and The Search for WondLa, but it can't be any of those.Was the girl a young child in the beginning of the book and then high school age later on?
What's the Name of That Book???
Books mentioned in this topic
The Mad Scientist's Daughter (other topics)Frost (other topics)
Klara and the Sun (other topics)
The Search for WondLa (other topics)
The plot spans several years from the girl's childhood to young adulthood. It takes place on earth in the future, where everyone basically lives in self-contained cities, except for some "wild" nomads who live outside the cites. The girl is technically in the guardianship of her uncle after her father's death when she is very young, but the uncle is always away and leaves her in the care of his android. She thinks about her mother a lot in the narrative; her mother was one of these nomadic people from outside the city. I think her father met the mother on some sort of expedition?
The main robot/android is a specific type of android (can't remember the details) made for taking care of children and/or performing work assistance. I believe the android is described as male and uses he/him pronouns. I think the android is basically a "top-of-the-line," highly sophisticated model with AI intelligence. The girl and this android live together in her uncle's apartment, and the android walks the girl to school everyday.
The school is staffed by teacher androids, but those are less sophisticated than her guardian android. And there is rising background tension in the society from humans with growing resentments towards androids/robots. I believe eventually she is one of the only students left at the school, because everyone else is protesting the use of android teachers. She has very few friends, if any. Some of the other children make fun of her about her caretaker android walking her to school.
At one point, a new boy joins her class and decides to become friends with her. His name is something like "Data Ram," but I can't remember exactly. She is wary and stand-offish to him, and he doesn't seem to care. There are several instances where the girl doesn't know quite what's going on, but the boy is having Intense Silent Power Struggles (my words, not the story's) with 1. the female teacher android, and 2. the caretaker android. At one point, there is some discussion between the girl and her caretaker android that the caretaker android might be jealous (or something) about her new friend.
Diseases are taken very seriously in this world, and at one point the girl gets sick with a fever. She is sent home from school and can't attend for a few days. Her friend brings some sugar cookies he made with pink frosting. This is notable because 1. how did he find where she lived? the android caretaker feels some kind of way about the boy coming to their apartment, 2. he used real ingredients that were very hard to come by and made them from scratch. The cookies were not very good tasting. The girl is confused in her feelings about her friend and her android caretaker, who DOES NOT LIKE this boy, for some reason.
Tensions continue to rise about the use/presence of androids in society, eventually resulting in riots. this is described by the girl as what's going on in the world, but we don't generally see her involved in it, although it impacts her ability to go to school. One day the caretaker android tells the girl that her friend has been "destroyed" in the riots. This is significant because 1. her friend is dead, and 2. "Destroyed" is only used in reference to androids, indicating that her friend was an android all along. It turns out he was part of an experiment to determine if a sophisticated enough android could be made to fool humans. Also, we learn those Intense Silent Power Struggles between the boy and other androids were actually a form of silent communication that robot minds can do. More sophisticated androids basically "out-rank" less sophisticated ones. This was a big source of stress for the caretaker android, as he was "less sophisticated" than the boy android.
Time passes, the riots stop, the girl is older. I can't remember the sequence of events for the next two events or if they happen concurrently.
1. eventually the girl plans to go to university and assumes she will take the android with her (it is very clear at this point they are family to each other), but her uncle returns and decides he wants his android back now that she is leaving/almost an adult. This causes emotional distress. And the girl plans how to leave with the android, anyway.
2. Leaving school one day, and meeting up with the caretaker android to walk home, the girl runs into a few classmate of hers. I can't remember exactly what happens, but the Mean Girl classmate starts yelling about the android attacking her or something, which is not true. The Mean Girl's Boyfriend is also there. I can't remember if it gets a little bit physical, but eventually the caretaker android pulls a gun out (which is a huge problem for some legal reasons), and almost gets taken away for reprograming. I think the girl and the caretaker android get away at this point, but they are both very emotionally distressed and worried about the potential legal ramifications, despite acting in self-defense/defense of a human charge. (Also I think the gun was fake?).
That's all the plot I can remember. There is definitely a commentary about love: what it is, how it's expressed, who can experience it, etc. throughout the story, with the girl coming to some personal conclusions by the end. So if anyone can help me find the title or author of this work, I would be very grateful!