The year is 2037. Canada has been annexed by the US because of conflict with Russia. Abortion has been declared illegal, and electronic devices record our every move. Climate change has gone to crisis levels, and people in the Arctic are dying of heat. AI technology is developing sentience. And a deadly Illness (capitalization from the novel) is spreading across the world, transmittable by eye contact.

Amongst all this is a university therapist, Slaton, and an AI, Julian, who develop feelings of love for each other. They meet when Slaton is detained at the US border for encouraging a student to have an abortion (she was framed). Julian follows her home via a subdural earpiece she got at the border hospital (creepy). They talk, get to know each other, and eventually, Julian gives her advice on how to survive the Illness.

Autonomy by Victoria Hetherington is the kind of book I had to sit with for a while after reading, just to process what I just read. I started out not liking the book very much — it was well-written and it touched on important contemporary topics. But, in the first half at least, it lacked bite. The issues Hetherington explores aren’t really anything new. As terrible as it may be to feel desensitized about serious topics like women’s reproductive health and Big Brother technology, the world of the novel didn’t feel very special, and I wasn’t quite getting immersed in it.

Worse, for the first half, the narrative deals with its themes with such a gentle, almost perfunctory, touch that the book didn’t really grab me. One example I found particularly egregious was how the novel treats Slaton being framed for encouraging abortion. Much fuss is made over how Slaton needs to protect both herself and the student who framed her from police, because abortion is such a heinous crime in this world, and the potential consequences are terrifying. There’s even a frantic dash to the US-Canada border, and a random encounter with a drug dealer.

Except then the consequences do come, and… they were pretty meh. Slaton needs to spend a week in a detention centre, do talk therapy with an AI… and that’s it. After that week, she’s free to go. The food is crappy, and there’s a minor subplot with.a creepy cellmate, but for the most part, those scenes play out more like pleasant conversations than Orange is the New Black.

So up until the halfway mark, I was ready to write a blog post about how this was a book I’d imagine would be nominated for a Giller and may even win. It was a book I’d imagine being taught in university English classes, and being discussed by some book clubs. But it wasn’t a book that was going to stay with me. It’s a good book, but ultimately just okay.

And then Slaton meets Peter. Slaton rightly points out that one’s odds of surviving the global Illness will likely align with the level of one’s wealth. She has only $112 left in her bank account, so on Julian’s advice, she goes to find a sugar daddy. And in the world of sugar daddies, Peter is a pretty good catch. He’s kind, the sex (at the start at least) is pretty good, and his expectations for a wife are pretty reasonable. Their relationship isn’t quite the stuff of romance, but on the whole, Slaton pretty much got what she was looking for when she married him. 

And this is when I found the novel got interesting. Because of course, the rather mundane comfort of Slaton and Peter’s lives is far from perfect. There’s problems you may expect: Julian gets jealous (in an AI way) and leaves; Slaton gets lonely and starts to realize Peter’s flaws. Her thoughts turn downright cruel, though thankfully (for Peter’s sake), she never voices these thoughts out loud. She thinks of how Peter smells like old age and diabetes, notices the effects of aging on his body (he’s mid-50s, she’s mid-30s), and in a moment even she is ashamed of, imagines him getting cancer. She gets lost in the ennui of the wealthy, and ensconced within a gated community outside Toronto, she misses her friends and city life. It’s all a bit “poor little rich girl” at times, but also an intriguing contemplation on how much one is willing to give up to ensure one’s own safety.

But where I find the novel really hits its stride is when tendrils of the Illness begin to make their way into the bubble of their gated community. I absolutely love how Hetherington handles this part of the story. Far from turning into the usual plague dystopian novel, Autonomy maintains its contemplative, philosophical core. Hetherington doles out moments of harsh reality very sparingly, and the novel becomes all the richer for it. Because suddenly, all the quiet, contemplative conversations leading up to this point coalesce into a broader, deeper philosophical discourse about human existence. What is our role as a human being? What are our responsibilities? What privileges come with having a body, and what experiences does our body allow us to have?

So much of these are questions that come in many other stories about AI sentience, but by framing them within a global pandemic, and within more pointed observations around financial and class inequities, Hetherington adds several new layers to the conversation. And by having their protagonist experience the stark contrast between her life in a gated community basically burying its head in the sand about the Illness, and the lives of people in a city that’s been dealing with the day-to-day realities of the Illness, Hetherington explores even more complexities around these questions about being human.

Part of me wishes the story had been this powerful from the very beginning; another part of me appreciates the author’s sleight of hand. Autonomy underwhelmed me until it didn’t. I can’t quite fully grasp all the thoughts and questions I have after reading this novel, but I admit it’s given me pause. It’s a good novel — not quite a gut punch, but deliberately so. Autonomy invites you to look deeper, and perhaps give it a re-read.

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Thank you to Dundurn Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Reputation reads like Jane Austen set in a CW universe. Think of Jane Austen’s naive, thoughtless, and self-centered heroine Emma, in a fish-out-of-water situation like Austen’s other heroine Catherine Morland, except instead of the mostly decent Tilneys, we get a cast full of Wickhams. It’s a bit of a mish-mash of a novel that seems to be going for witty social commentary, but ultimately (to me anyway) falls short. The humour isn’t quite sharp enough to bite; the more earnest explorations of deeper social issues like rape, sexist double standards, and sexual assault aren’t quite developed enough to really land its mark; and with the exception of a few scenes, the characters feel more like roles than fully developed human beings. The romance subplot between Georgiana and Thomas is a highlight, mostly because of their witty banter over letters, and because Thomas seems genuinely sweet, but it was a minor thread in a more glossy story that never quite find its heart.

Middle-class heroine Georgiana Ellers gets drawn into a world of parties, drinking, and drugs when she meets the beautiful and charismatic Frances Campbell. Frances and her friends are all super wealthy; while enjoying a bit of snuff, one of them enthuses about how much better “peasant drugs” are, because the misery of poor people’s lives require much stronger doses to escape from. One of Frances’ friends Jane bluntly tells Georgiana that she doesn’t belong; all the super wealthy people at the parties can get as hedonistic as they want because their wealth will protect them from consequences, but Georgiana’s circumstances don’t offer her the same protection. A rude remark, but actually with a kernel of truth, and it’s a shame the story didn’t quite explore that as much as it could have. There’s a shopping scene where Georgiana feels the stark difference between her and Frances’ finances, but mostly, we don’t see much of how Georgiana’s partying affects her any worse than it does Frances.

That shopping scene was also a bit meh for another reason: the narration makes a big deal of how Georgiana gives what little money she has to a beggar, while Frances buys a million new outfits. And then Georgiana suggests they help the poor and Frances kinda brushes it off. Because of the novel’s confusing tone, I’m not quite sure how to read that scene: this is probably the only time Georgiana shows any interest in a social conscience, and despite giving alms to the beggar, it’s not like she suddenly goes off to volunteer at soup kitchens afterwards. So: is this scene meant to be satirical, poking gentle fun at Georgiana’s faux-conscience? Or is it meant to be earnest, like, look how much more superficial Frances and her friends are. I wasn’t sure, and so the scene just made me roll my eyes, but had little impact otherwise.

I think part of the confusion as well is that in many ways, the novel reads like a contemporary. The characters’ dialogue, their attitudes, even so much of how they approach things, feels contemporary. I know it’s Regency-era because of some nominal scenes where Georgiana’s aunt and uncle mention marriage and reputation, and because of how formal Thomas and Georgiana are with each other. But I can’t help feeling that we could transplant this novel into the 21st century without changing much. And it’s not that I don’t think heroines in the Regency era can have modern values. But I’ve read lots of historical romances where those modern values were portrayed really well within the atmosphere of the time period. I’m thinking of Courtney Milan and Tessa Dare’s books as examples, and there are lots of Harlequin historical romances that have forward-thinking heroines and on-point social commentary, while still very much feeling like a historical novel. In the case of Reputation, it feels like a CW adaptation where the CW elements took over.

All that being said, there are some things I did really like about this novel. I already mentioned enjoying the romance between Georgiana and Thomas; it’s sweet, it’s clever, and I looked forward to any scene where Thomas appeared. I also really like that Frances was bisexual, and that we actually see her in a romantic moment with another woman. The ending to Frances’ story was coyly done, but also really nice.

And finally, the cover art is fantastic! It’s the kind of art that I can imagine will translate very well to a poster, if this book does get picked up for a show.

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Thank you to St Martin’s Press for an e-galley of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, Netflix needs to turn this into a mini-series, stat! First of all, it’s a murder mystery set at an annual Scrabble championship. How absolutely nerdy-awesome is that for a setting?! Even better, clues are revealed in word puzzles. (Are they called anagrams if the mixed-up letters don’t really form words?) Watching protagonist Najwa Bakri look at a jumble of letters and figure out what they spell: what I would give to see that play out on screen! And finally, it’s set in Malaysia, with Malay words casually integrated into characters’ dialogue. As a word nerd who loves mysteries and who grew up in Southeast Asia, this is a book I wish so badly I could have read as a teen, and I am so thrilled today’s teens get to experience this for themselves.

Queen of the Tiles is a word nerd’s dream of a murder mystery. Beyond the clues being word puzzles, the story also shows us glimpses of the Scrabble games. Just like The Queen’s Gambit showed non-chess-players how awesome chess strategies can be, Queen of the Tiles introduces us to a world where placing one word immediately below another can unveil multiple combinations of two-letter words that end up doubling or tripling your score. It shows us how a player may put in a made-up word on purpose, to force their opponent to do something on their turn that will open up an even bigger opportunity for the first player to score. Seriously: I would watch a documentary on this; I would watch a CGI sequence of these Scrabble tiles clicking into place while teens eye each other and plot their next move.

The central mystery revolves around Najwa’s best friend, Trina. Trina was beautiful, brilliant at Scrabble, and Instagram-famous. She was adored as a superstar Scrabble player, which, honestly is awesome in itself to imagine such fame, and widely known as the Queen of the Tiles. She dies suddenly in a match against long-time opponent Josh, and her death was deemed to be due to natural causes. A year later, Najwa returns to the Scrabble tournament circuit to compete in the same tournament. Trina’s death the year before casts a pallor over the tournament, but most of the buzz is around how the title of Monarch of the Tiles is now up for grabs. Then Trina’s long-dormant Instagram account posts an update, hinting that there was something suspicious about her death. And Najwa, along with some of Trina’s other friends, investigates her final hours.

Najwa is a fantastic protagonist. I love how the author incorporates Najwa’s Scrabble brain into her regular thinking: Najwa often thinks in Scrabble tiles. Her reflections on events include a single-word summary of the situation, along with that word’s Scrabble score. She also says each person can be encapsulated in a single word, and then drops complex words with such nonchalant chill that I wish my vocabulary had such range. I also like how the author explores her trauma over Trina’s death, and her complicated feelings about having been in Trina’s shadow. We see a bit of Najwa’s experiences in therapy, and some of the skills she learned to cope, and I love how natural the author makes all of it feel. There’s still so much stigma around mental health, that it’s good to see the value of therapy portrayed in this novel.

I also absolutely adore the cast of characters. Most of Trina and Najwa’s friends, who also happen to be prime suspects in Trina’s death, are amongst the Scrabble elite. (One of them, Ben, is known in the community as Singapore Ben, to differentiate him from KL Ben, who is much lower ranked.) As brilliant as Najwa is, these other characters stand toe-to-toe with her on the Scrabble field, and it’s just a joy to see all these teens chat about love, dating, family, and other teen topics, while casually also doing word games over snacks.

Honestly, I can gush about this book all day. It’s probably my favourite read of the year so far. I highly recommend it on so many levels, and if it ever does get turned into a mini-series, I would binge it that very weekend. I devoured this book in a single day, and already I want more!

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.