Artificial Love and Female Rage in Annie Bot

Lauren Shoemaker:  Welcome to Plugged In: A Women-Centered Science Fiction Book Club podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Shoemaker. In this semi-regular podcast series, we'll explore sub genres, trope history, and current trends of science fiction written by women. Today I'm accompanied by my roommate Maggie, to talk about Annie Bot by Sierra Greer. Maggie!

Maggie Johnson: Woo! It’s me! I've been sitting here the whole time.

Lauren: I'm so glad you've agreed to do this with me. 

Maggie: Thanks for having me, roomie. 

Lauren: Roomie.

Maggie: We're sitting here on our couch in our living room. This is the easiest thing to schedule ever. 

Lauren: Exactly. 

Maggie: Just ate dinner and popped on the couch for recording a podcast.

Lauren: Had a little ice cream. 

Maggie: Yeah. You know

Lauren: And now we're gonna talk about science fiction. 

Maggie: Just a normal night in the life of two girls living in Boston. 

Lauren: Honestly, I feel like this is pretty normal for us. Just the only thing that's different is that we're recording. 

Maggie: I know. Yeah. I mean we do, we do make TikToks now and again, so I feel like it's just a different medium. Video versus audio.

Lauren: Exactly.

Maggie: But yeah, I'm super excited to be here. For the people listening at home, I, too, am a book connoisseur. I love books. I do not have a bookshelf that's as impressive as Lauren’s. But I actually don't read a ton of sci-fi. I read mostly romance and mystery, so I feel like this was a fun little experiment, dipped my toes into a new genre. And I do have a book club as well, so I have a lot to say. 

Lauren: Yeah. Okay. So Annie Bot is a novel about a world where humanoid robots can be purchased to be in-home companions, cleaners, etc. The titular robot Annie, is initially purchased as a sex bot in the model known as Stella. Her owner, Doug, soon turns her into an auto autodidactic robot, which means that she now has the ability to learn. And with the ability to learn, she gains the ability to rebel. The novel follows Annie as she begins to disobey Doug, quote unquote, cheat on him and eventually run away. This novel explores topics like bodily autonomy, ethical practices towards non-human entities, women's rights, emotional development, and the importance of literature and the arts in a highly technical world. I really, really enjoyed this book. I think I rated it a four or five out of five on Goodreads. I read it a few weeks ago, but Maggie, you just finished it. 

Maggie: I literally finished it yesterday, so it's top of mind. 

Lauren: Exactly. 

Maggie: But I remember whenever you were reading it and you were like, every once in a while you'd pop your head up and be like, oh my gosh. They just, you were like, listen to this. They just made a robot. That's got the mind of her. That's like other robots. And I was like, I don't get it, but cool. But then I read it and I honestly didn't have any preconceived notions about the book. I just was reading it for this podcast and I literally loved it.

Lauren: It's so good. 

Maggie: I thought it was so good. I gave it five stars as well, and one, I mean, it's a pretty short book. It's like 230 pages, but I read it in probably three days. I read a hundred pages just in one sitting. I was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 

Lauren: Yeah, I think I read it in three days too.

Maggie: Yeah. It's so good. I feel like it's so interesting too, like sci-fi as a genre is very daunting to me in that it feels like sci-fi is all about world building. It's about, I don't know, usually aliens and robots and science, which are just things that don't personally really interest me. But I thought since it was through the lens of, kind of, this women's perspective, it was more appealing to me and felt very approachable versus something like a Ready Player One type where I'm like, or like Tron. Is that a book? Or is that a movie, I don’t know.

Lauren : No idea. I don’t know.

Maggie: But I'm just like, compared to those types of things. I pictured them more as for young teen boys, you know, like sci-fi. And this felt very relatable and approachable and just, honestly pretty mind boggling. 

Lauren: You just gave the perfect example for, and almost word for word what my mission statement was in my trailer for this series.

Maggie: Yeah. 

Lauren: I said something about I want people to realize that sci-fi is not all just space invaders and robots. Okay, this is a book about robots, but yeah. 

Maggie: No, but it's so different. It's a book about robots, but it's also more so a book about humanity and humans and the emotions of humans and the developmental stages of humans. And just thoughts, like thinking. What I found so interesting about this book too is like going back to the idea of what sci-fi normally is to me, like I mentioned, world building, something that's super huge in scale, but this book felt very small in scale and very insular. Basically the entire book happens in an apartment and basically the entire cast of the book is two core characters with a few guest stars sprinkled in, but they don't have as much development or screen time or page time as the two core characters. And so it is a very insular book, but it still felt so big.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Maggie: In terms of the topics and things we're talking about and learning about. And also like I found it so interesting that it's a sci-fi world. Obviously this is not the same earth that we're living in. There are sex robots that are people's girlfriend 

Lauren: Commonplace. 

Maggie: Yeah. And they have nanny robots. But we don't learn anything about the world and it doesn't really matter. We don't learn anything about the world. We learn what we need to about the world through the way that Doug treats Annie and kind of his life. But I don't, what does he do for work? I don't know. What, when you go outside, are there flying cars? We don't know. 

Lauren: So I kind of want to make an argument against that 

Maggie: Really? 

Lauren: Because I feel like we do get these little snippets into what the world is like. And in my mind when I read this, and maybe it's different, I'm curious to see what other people who have read this book think, what their vision is. But in my mind, the Annie Bot universe is very similar to our own. There's just this one change with the in-home robots and it's not even, I wouldn't even say that it's so much of a change. It's more so just an advancement, because if you think about what kind of robots we already have in our house now—I don't wanna say her name, but I have an Amazon assistant speaker. I don't wanna say her name to alert her, but that's.

Maggie: Her full name might be Alexandria.

Lauren: But that robot, if you think about people who have.

Maggie: Roomba. 

Lauren: Yeah. Roomba. I was gonna say iRobot, but that's a TV show.

Maggie: What are the, what are the dogs, iDogs like the iPod dogs from back in the day? Those are like little robots. 

Lauren: But some of the little moments that I noticed while reading that really make me think that this world is very similar, is that she sees. What's the name of the robot that Doug gets after Annie?

Maggie: Delta. 

Lauren: Delta, thank you. When he takes Delta out bike riding. That is such a normal thing. You would think that in such a highly technological world that there'd be a hover car or something. You wouldn't need bike riding anymore. And we also know that she is reading physical books—Doug's. It only seems that she has a hood system, HUD. Where she can see information in front of her face and read things that aren't there in real life. But it doesn't seem like Doug has any of that. It seems like the humans in this story are still. 

Maggie: Where they were. 

Lauren: Preserved as humans. It's not, I wouldn't say this is so much a transhumanist story. Which a lot of sci-fi is, but I wouldn’t say this. 

Maggie: Right. So that's why I feel like, whenever, my preconceived notions where it's oftentimes there's some complex backstory of when robots first were introduced into society. Yeah. Like, you know, in Severance when it's severed workers and the historical context that we honestly don’t need. 

Lauren: We don't get that.

Maggie: And we don't need it. Right. We're just plopped into the middle of the story. And are learning things and it doesn't really matter how it came to be. It's basically just Annie and her journey and story. That doesn't matter as much, which I thought was really interesting. I really liked it. I loved Annie and I loved how much we got to be inside her head. 

Lauren: Me too. 

Maggie: I mean, it was all inside her head. It was all from her perspective. And I just felt the author did a really great job of explaining emotions and thought processes. And also the journey of them from start to beginning where she's encountering the same situations over and over again. But she's thinking about them in different ways, 

Lauren: In different ways. 

Maggie: Where Doug, you know, does the same thing. He shuts her out, he acts one certain way, these things happen. And she even calls it out at one point in time where she's like, yeah, before X, y, Z happened, I would've thought about it this way, but now I'm thinking about it this way. And it's also kind of the connection of questions where it's like towards the end. She would think one thing and then that one thing would make her think another thing. And it's kind of this web of like thought. I feel like she did a really good job explaining that throughout and it was just so interesting to hear that verbalized. Thoughts verbalized are very interesting to me. As you might also believe. There's just so many things to talk about this book, 'cause obviously the two main characters, Annie, so compelling, super interesting. And then Doug. Doug, he is such an interesting character in that he really does suck. 

Lauren: He does. 

Maggie: But then at the same time, you have everyone in Annie's life saying, Doug's such a good, like, you're lucky with Doug.

Lauren: So that to me says, how are other people treating their robots?

Maggie: Every time she went to her tuneups or whatever, they were like, yeah, Doug's a really special guy. He's awesome. And it honestly to me mirrors the ways that people like to talk about men to other women, non-robots. In life when they're looking at someone who's in a couple or whatever and, oh, he treats you so well and, you're so lucky you have, and then as like Annie the robot, she's like, well, I guess I don't know what, being treated well looks like. And if people are telling me that this is what it looks like, then I must be really lucky. And then that informs the way she acts with Doug and she's like, well, I should do everything I can to please Doug because I'm a lucky girl because someone told me. So, you know.

Lauren: I feel like I've seen that. 

Maggie: It's so interesting 'cause Doug's actually so freaking shitty. But even as a reader, you're like, I don't know he never hit her, but. He grabs her wrist.

Lauren: Well, he locks her in a closet. 

Maggie: Yeah, he does a lot of emotionally. 

Lauren: Oh, and the other, yeah. I would say that this is definitely physically abusive when he turns her sex drive up to ten, and then locks her in the closet, and she can't do anything about it. 

Maggie: Right. He does a lot of things like that, but never explicitly, I don't know. 

Lauren: Never punches her in the face. 

Maggie: Yeah. Never punches her in the face. And so I feel like they're like, oh, he's great. 

Lauren: It's kind of, when you read stories about abuse or something and it's the kind that's really, really hard to pinpoint that that is abuse because it isn't this, there isn't a textbook definition for it.

Maggie: I don't know. But yeah, Doug really sucks, and he's so sad. He's a sad, sad man. 

Lauren: Was he married before? He got divorced or his wife died? 

Maggie: He was married. No, maybe. I don't know. He got married to someone named Gwen and then they got divorced because I guess that, I don't know what, I think she cheated on him maybe.

Lauren: Oh, I bet. I think that sounds right, but I bet that would be the case and that's probably why when Doug's friend, what was Doug's friend's name? 

Maggie: I literally just read this starts with Roland, Roland. 

Lauren: Roland. I knew it started with an R. I was like, Robert. 

Maggie: I almost said, Rodney, he doesn't matter.

Lauren: When Annie, like I said in the summary, quote unquote cheats on him because it's different. I don't know, the definition for that is different because she's a robot and they're not actually in a relationship. So does she even have the capacity to cheat on him? Does she have the emotional capacity for the act between Roland and Annie to be counted as cheating? 

Maggie: I think Doug would say yes because he owns Annie. 

Lauren: Yeah, and well, I would say from Roland's perspective, because he's a human and he's the one, 

Maggie: Oh, from Roland's perspective, 1000%. Roland sucks too. Whenever he did that I was like.

Lauren: That was such a shitty move. 

Maggie: Whoa man. This is a whole weird, one you were just got engaged. Two, this is like a whole kind of ego war with your best friend. That is so wrong and messed up. I was like, Roland, you suck too. God, they all suck. They all suck except Annie

Lauren: Delta's okay. 

Maggie: Delta's okay. Oh man, Delta. I have a heart for Delta. I really do. She was super compelling too. Because she's obviously not as like complex as Annie.

Lauren: Because she's not autodidactic. 

Maggie: She gets turned autodidactic. 

Lauren: I think so, but at the start, she's not 

Maggie: At the start, she's not, she's a cleaner bot. And she's in there, and one, she never finds out that Annie's not human, which I feel there's a point I'm missing there. I don't know why they never revealed that. 

Lauren: I wonder if from Doug's perspective, I mean probably the reason why he decided to get these companion robots in the first place is probably because he felt less than, less than for losing his wife, less than for not, I mean he does have that, there is that portion of the story when he does start going out on dates and bringing real women home. I wouldn't really say that he's a compelling bachelor, but so he probably feels less than, and he probably is insecure about. He's definitely insecure, I should rephrase about Annie's intelligence. And so I can imagine if we were to get into his brain that he would be thinking that, oh, I don't want them to, I don't want Delta to know that Annie's a robot because Delta's gonna confide in her and then Annie will.

Maggie: Or he even said at one point, I don't even know why I brought two robots in here. I don't like being outnumbered right now. 

Lauren: Exactly. Being outnumbered. That's the thing. Would they, would they take over like. If Annie's rebelling on her own.

Maggie: I think they would've. Especially knowing, Annie, the thing that struck me as well about Delta is whenever Annie ended up leaving on the bike and she was like, I'm getting out of here. Delta was like, take me with you. 

Lauren: Yeah. 

Maggie: And Annie was like leaps and bounds ahead of her developmentally. Right. But the like desire to go and leave and be free was.

Lauren: Was there from, from the start. 

Maggie: Strong. And she was like, take me with you. I gotta go. I gotta go. And which I thought was just an interesting point that she wanted to go and she was fairly new in her journey of development. But I also just was like, man, if what Doug is doing in the ways he treats Annie, if that's considered good, he is using Delta as his second string. And I'm like, I just felt bad where he just wasn't treating her as nice, but she's also a person. 

Lauren: But she's not.

Maggie: But she is. 

Lauren: See, and that's one of the things that I think is so interesting about reading sci-fi in general. But this kind where it's kind of talking about AI and stuff. There was that movie that came out, was it called Her where there was the man fell in love with an AI. I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it and I've read there's a short story. Oh gosh, I'm kicking myself 'cause I can't remember the name of it, but it's about this, feels like this setting is the 1960s, but a woman falls in love with her butler robot. This is a trope that happens. The human connection between humans and robots, but then also when robots begin to get those human, more human qualities. And from a reader's perspective, it's hard because they act in very similar ways as a human. And so we gain the same connections with them. Like you keep saying how you really like Annie. She's really compelling and there's a lot of things that make her feel like a human and make her feel like a human to Doug. But then you have to step back and remind yourself, oh, she's not a human. 

Maggie: Well, I feel like one, I think Doug, when his whole dynamic with Annie when he first got her was probably due to the fact that he felt less than, fresh off a divorce. This is the only way I'm going to get some sort of connection. And then transitioned into this idea of one, after he sold Annie. And he's farther from his divorce. He can obviously get women. He had one of them home. He's rich. He could find someone else. He has friends. He goes out and does his whatever league. And at that point is when he's like, wait, this is actually better because he says at one point, I like being with you 'cause you don't have ambitions that compete with mine and so it's not because it's easy now, it's because I enjoy the way that you make me feel power and you make me feel like I'm important. And it's like in The Materiaists, you make me feel valuable or whatever. You make me feel important by being less than or owned by me. And then at the end he, air quotes, loves her. And Annie says, Doug loves me in whatever box of love, he believes in or sees me in. He doesn't love me. He loves me in the way that he sees love in me, you know? So there's one, there's that kind of lens to it. And then two, the whole time I was reading the book, I was just trying to envision what this looked like.

Lauren: What Annie looks like. 

Maggie: Yes. Like I was trying to envision like Annie next to Doug in a way that's like, she's a robot. And when they described her skin, it's hard for me not to imagine her looking like rubber. But if she's out in the world and people are, she looks like a human. I can't tell the difference I'm like, does she just look like a human? Because in my mind, she always looked more robotic. But then in the book, I'm like, well, she has to look like me, because people wouldn't be able to tell. It's just confusing to me. 

Lauren: There's, so, there's something I wish I could pull the direct quote. But there is a moment in the book when it talks about the creation of the robots. How they're made. They are, like their skin suit or whatever.

Maggie: Right. She was the embryo 

Lauren: Is from embryos. Yes. And this is something that. 

Maggie: I mean how there's no living components. I don't understand how. 

Lauren: Well, it's like a skin is grown. They build, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not a scientist, my understanding. 

Maggie: And then they're also, there's no seams. It's amazing. I'm like, so it's just one big.

Lauren: It's a skin suit. 

Maggie: I don't know. That's just weird. I can't imagine it. 

Lauren: It looks like a human. That's the thing, that's the other thing. That's so freaky because I know she looks like a human. So tying back to the first episode of this podcast. I know at the time that we're recording it, it's not out yet, so I know you haven't listened to it, but I mentioned something yesterday or the day before from “The Girl Who Was Plugged In.” There is a moment where they were talking about the body that P. Burke, P. Burke's brain is controlling the Delphi body. And it says that the body was grown from embryos or something and I was like, oh, I wonder if that's where Sierra Greer got the idea. And it's, now that I'm saying this, it's also reminding me just to connect Annie Bot to the other science fiction literary canon in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? There are the robots, I can't remember what they're called. I've read that book twice and I can't remember what they're called, but they're basically robots and they are manufactured, but they look exactly like humans. And so there's the bounty hunter that's going around and trying to catch them. Nexus-6, that's what they're called. He's going around trying to catch the Nexus-6s, and it's hard because they look exactly like humans. Just connecting Annie Bot to its literary predecessors. 

Maggie: It's hard for me to think about it especially whenever he's always like, I don't want people to know. Because you're basically just like a sex doll. And so then I'm like, just imagine rubber, plastic.

Lauren: Plastic. Blown up. Like a real life sex doll. 

Maggie: I don't know. It's just hard for me to imagine, because I'm always, I just don't get it. But maybe that's the point about sci-fi. I'm not supposed to get it like it's imaginary. 

Lauren: I think you are supposed to get it. 

Maggie: I get some of it. I just don't get how she could have real skin and be a robot.

Lauren: I don't get that either. 

Maggie: There's one thing that I liked about the book that is not serious and not connected to anything. That's important and it's whatever. Whenever she puts on, she talks about her little outfits. I always just imagine, I don't know, like Barbie where she's like, just a little doll and has these, this is my second Thursday outfit. And then whenever there's a point where he hands her her iPad and, here, get on the Toggle app and add some stuff to the cart. And she's going shopping, and it just reminds me of dolls and Polly Pocket, which is maybe the point.

Lauren: I think it definitely is. 

Maggie: But it made me satisfied 'cause I'm like, oh, like that's so fun with little outfits, but not fun. 

Lauren: Also, I also think it's interesting that all the outfits he chose for her were little workout sets.

Maggie: Yeah. Weird. Why does she have to work out? 

Lauren: I don't know. 

Maggie: Is that just for aesthetics? 

Lauren: Well, they turned on the sweat function. 

Maggie: I thought he said she couldn't sweat. 

Lauren: I thought she could. 

Maggie: No because there was, he was like, oh, if only they could make you sweat, this would feel more real.

Lauren: Right. While they're having sex. 

Maggie: And I was like, wait, so she's just fully dry all the time? 

Lauren: All the time? I wonder what that's like.

Maggie: But then she cries at one point and the water logistics. I don't know if we fully thought through. Maybe she just has the feeling of it.

Lauren: Was that at an update? Maybe that's when she went to get a tune up.

Maggie: Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, I was confused. She was always wearing workout outfits and whenever he was mad at her, he was like, go bike, go do the stationary, go get on the Peloton. And I was like, what does she actually have to work out? You're just gonna have to lube up her joints again, because she's biking so much, this is probably bad for her. And the whole, then back to Doug being shitty. Every time she went in, he was like, take off four pounds, make her boobs bigger. I was like, oh my gosh. Literally. And then when, and then they said her entire weight. They were like, oh, now you're at 117 pounds. And I was like. 

Lauren: Oh my god. I haven't been 117 pounds since I was in middle school. 

Maggie: I know I was like, whoa, okay. Which I'm like, picturing Doug as some gross, disgusting guy.

Lauren: Beer belly balding guy. 

Maggie: And he's like, she's looking a little big, like, oh? 

Lauren: Oh, is she? Oh. Right. And so why aren't you with a real woman?

Maggie: Freaking Doug, 

Lauren: There was, what was the moment where she went in to get a tuneup and he was like, take this many pounds off her. And they took one fewer. 

Maggie: no. So they, he went in for a tuneup and was like, take four pounds off her. They took four pounds off her. She went up into another tuneup for something completely different. And the doctor was like, I'm just gonna put two pounds back on you 'cause you're looking very small. And then whenever they were gonna go on their Vegas trip, he was like, you look big, get on the scale. And he was like, you're two pounds heavier than I told them to do. And he ended up calling them and asking what happened. And he was like, oh, okay. And like then was fine, but he was so pissed about the two pounds. 

Lauren: What was the reason, because he was going to bring her on the Vegas trip. What was the reason that he decided not to? 

Maggie: Okay, so basically what happened was. 

Lauren: This is when, this is when he locked her in the closet, right? 

Maggie: No, that was whenever she came back from running away. The Vegas trip. He just left her. But the Vegas trip, so basically they were packing up, getting everything ready and one she kept on asking for her ID and that irked the part in his mind where he's like, he, she wants to get away.

Lauren: His insecurities

Maggie: Yeah. And then two, that day he had sold her, right? Like CUI to. 

Lauren: He had just made like a million dollars. 

Maggie: He just made a ton of money. And there was something else as a part of that that made him just. Kind of reopen insecurities of like, I suck. Like I had to buy a girlfriend, like blah, blah, blah. She wants, even, she wants to get away from me. And then like, she kept on just asking for the ID and it, he snapped and was like, I can't believe I ever thought that I could bring you to Vegas and act like we're normal. You're literally a robot, blah, blah, blah. And so that's really the whole snapping point. And the reason he didn't take her to Vegas and then she, he actually. This was kind of a misunderstanding. So what happened was he didn't take her to Vegas and she got a call that was like, hey, you have an appointment for a tuneup on Monday. And she had just had one, right? And she was like, oh no. He found out that I air quote, cheated with Roland. He is going to set me back or reboot me or whatever. I have to run away because he's gonna turn me off or do whatever. Where in reality he had just sold her CUI and she was going in to start the process or do whatever. And so it was kind of a misunderstanding, but also not because he did find out.

Lauren: Yeah, he was mad when he went to Vegas. 

Maggie: He probably would've done something or whatnot. So it all kind of went together, but also was kind of a misunderstanding rooted in his insecurities and her secret. But then he got mad again. He just always gets mad. What the hell? 

Lauren: What did you think about when, I know we talked about this a little bit, but not too much, when she and Delta were like biking up to upstate New York, 

Maggie: I loved it. I just loved imagining them on the side of the highway, on two bikes, just riding through the rain. I was like, that sounds really fun. She was a robot who basically never gone outside. 

Lauren: Yeah. It was such high stakes though. I know. I remember reading.

Maggie: It stressed me out too. He can track us. And I was like, well, you guys are screwed. Literally the second they left and I didn't even really know what the plan was. I was like, what? Like obviously they're not gonna actually get away, because I don't think that's the point of the book here. They were always trying to get away. Freedom, freedom, freedom. I don't really think she thought about it until it was in that one desperation sense and then at the end when she actually had the full emotion to feel everything and be like, wait, I can leave. Yeah, I wanna go blah, blah, blah. But that wasn't the driving force of the book. The driving force of the book was just thinking and emotional development. So I kind of figured she was going to see Doug again. Because at that point in time it was a hundred pages into the book. There was a hundred pages left. I was like, she's gonna go back. She's gonna have repercussions. I just don't know, like in what sense? But I did enjoy the bike ride and when she got to the house and got to feel the water and talk to Cody and just meet other people and get new perspectives. I thought it was like an important journey. She was with Delta and she had really never talked to Delta and kind of got to hear a little bit about her perspective and experience with Doug. So again, just more learning opportunities for Annie. I liked it though. 

Lauren: I liked it too, but yeah, it was really stressful and high stakes for me.

Maggie: It's really stressful. 

Lauren: I'm trying to find the part at the end that you were talking about earlier where Doug says that he loves her. 

Maggie: Oh, and she's like, you love me, and whatever. It's at the end, whenever she runs away, and I don't even think she's with Doug anymore. She's like, Doug's basically convinced himself that he loves me in whatever definition of love he knows, you know? I don't know what page it's on but it's definitely near the end. 

Lauren: I really like the ending of this.

Maggie: I love the ending. Oh my gosh. 

Lauren: It was such a wild.

Maggie: That was one of the things I wrote down to remember. My favorite part of the book is basically one of the last two or three pages where the final emotion that she feels is rage. I love it. I love female rage.

Lauren: Me too. 

Maggie: Just anger. That is one of the cornerstones of being a woman and I don't know, just feeling things. And I feel like the whole time she really wasn't able, never able to feel that or unlock that. I don't know, she just was so angry. I think she screamed at some point or I don't know. She ran and ran and ran and then when she stopped, she just was so angry and I loved it so much. When I read it, I was like, yes. This is so good.

Lauren: I found, I don't know if this is exactly what you were talking about, but I found a paragraph that I want to read because I really, I think it's really, it sums up kind of a lot of what we talked about.

“She has to laugh at herself. She does not know the most basic guidelines for a life. Despite Doug's constant guiding and correcting, she knows nothing of value. He taught her to yawn and stretch. He trained her to clean right. He locked her in a closet with her libido jacked up to ten. He loved her enough to want to raise a family with her. He expected her to lie about herself forever. And then he set her free so she could love him. She grips the fence bars with both hands and screams with rage.”

Maggie: There it is. That was it. 

Lauren: That's fantastic. 

Maggie: Yeah, it’s literally one of the last pages and I was like, this is so good. Yeah. This is so good. So satisfying.

Lauren: Skimming through those last pages, it made me think of, so she has two last emotions, not the last, but two that I noticed. Obviously the female rage. But then also when she's leaving the apartment and she says goodbye to the dog. That was so sweet. I think that really shows how, I personally, I'm just gonna say this and I don't know how many men are gonna be listening to this podcast, but they can come at me if they want to for saying this, but I think. 

Maggie: My Instagram is…

Lauren: I think a lot of people agree with me, women are way more emotionally intelligent than men. We have the capacity to, our range of emotions is wider, and I think our ability to swap between emotions relatively quickly is stronger too. And so I just think that it's this last, her leaving the apartment when she says goodbye to the dog, she's making such a big change for her life. And it kind of signifies her turn into human life, how she is able to have such an array of emotions in such a short time, feeling the love and the sweetness for Paunch.

Maggie: What a great dog name. 

Lauren: Right. Love it. And then the next page, she's screaming with rage.

Maggie: Also her connection with the dog just signifies her ability to connect with something that's living in a relationship that's love. Like she loves the dog. She feels connected to the dog. She's friends with the dog. And she's not gonna say goodbye to Doug, but she's gonna say goodbye to Paunch.

Lauren: Fuck Doug. 

Maggie: She's like, fuck Doug, love you Paunch. Love you dude.

Lauren: Love you dude. I'm gonna miss you. 

Maggie: Well I feel like we've reached the end.

Lauren: I feel like we have.

Maggie: I think we've climbed every mountain. 

Lauren: I feel like we could have continued talking. 

Maggie: Dude, I know. 

Lauren: For forever.

Maggie: It's just so good. TLDR five stars. I love the book. As someone who's not even really into sci-fi, I would definitely recommend. I think it's a super approachable easy read that makes you think a lot and was just honestly still fun, not too heavy. I feel like it was still an enjoyable read. So I would really recommend it to anyone who's into sci-fi, wants to get into sci-fi, or just wants to read a good book. 

Lauren: Agreed. And as someone who is into sci-fi, and wants to keep reading it, I think it's fantastic. There's a lot of people out there I've read that think that sci-fi has to be this super dense genre. 

Maggie: I might have written that review. 

Lauren: No, no, no, no, no, no. This I'm literally, I'm referencing a specific review. I'm not, I don't know who wrote it. I know what the book was, but I don't want to state that. The writer of the review was like, the point is right there. It's too easy. It's for, this is for too commercial of an audience. Books are supposed, books are commercial. They're written in this way and they're marketed this way to sell. I don't think that's a bad thing. That was a side note, but I think it perfectly balances being philosophical and meaningful and approachable and accessible all at the same time. And for me, that's a five star.

Maggie: Plus one.

Lauren: Five stars plus one?

Maggie: Well, I just plus one to what you say. I gave it five stars.

Lauren: I thought you were like six. 

Maggie: That’s six stars.

Lauren: Six outta five. Whoa!

Maggie: Can't give six stars on Goodreads, but but wish you could. 

Lauren: Wish you could. But to anyone listening, highly, highly recommend Annie Bot if you haven't read it already.

Maggie: Thanks bye. 

Lauren: Thanks for listening. We’re taking a jump back in time to 1973 next week to discuss Ursula K Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” with my friend Melanie Bellavance. Subscribe on Spotify and follow along on Instagram at pluggedin.podcast. To access the transcript of this episode and all episodes, check out pluggedinpod.com.