Annie Bot
By Sierra Greer
Literary fiction/Mariner Books/Paperback/240 pages/$26.04/Amazon SG (https://amzn.to/3V1eWRw)
5 stars
Annie is as human as can be, except for the fact that she is a robot, created to please her owner Doug at all costs.
Life with him is simple. Annie spends her days exercising, cleaning and getting ready to please Doug in bed. Designed to require his pleasure in order to achieve her own, she wants for little more than making sure he is satisfied with her.
Everything crumbles when Doug’s old friend Roland comes to visit. In a single night, Annie learns that she is modelled after Gwen, Doug’s ex-wife, and keeps her first secret after a tryst with Roland in the broom closet.
The subsequent spiral reveals that Doug sees her as little more than a human-like toy, whose entire purpose is to fulfil him sexually or be subject to his wrath.
A debut novel for Sierra Greer, the author’s experience as a former high school English teacher shines through in clear, exacting prose. The Connecticut-based writer cuts through the fluff often seen in new writers who have yet to find their voice.
Doug’s attitude towards Annie – selfish, grating and repulsive – leaves this reviewer horrified and anxious.
Snipes at her minimised cleaning skills due to being a Cuddle Bunny, insistences that her weight needs to be shaved off while her bust size increases and critiques of her genuine efforts to please him are among the milder abuses Annie is subjected to.
The depravity of his behaviour is made worse by the knowledge that there exist groups of people who would defend Doug and agree with his treatment of Annie as nothing more than a sex slave.
Annie realises: “She doesn’t understand why, when Doug could be in a relationship with a human, he has chosen to have Annie as his girlfriend, unless she provides something that a human can’t. Like undivided attention. He is the only star in their system, she realises.
“He had no competition, no need to listen to Annie like she’s her own protagonist because she’s not. She has no outside, separate life beyond his. They have no issue of imbalance between them because they have no question, ever, about who has complete power.”
The novel, in its meticulous examination of humanity, free will, intimacy and control, is unafraid to make readers uncomfortable in the process.
Each of the deeply disturbing sex scenes serves to show that Doug is concerned with only his own happiness and pleasure.
The realisation creates distrust from Annie and the reader, both prone to questioning if Doug ever truly sees the robot as an individual.
Annie poses difficult questions about how she is evolving and whether she would be with Doug if she had a choice, and if her affections for him are true or a result of her base programming.
Running away after an intense argument in which Doug berates her incessantly, Annie says: “That’s what drives her forward. She is more afraid of Doug than she is of any unknown.”
During a conversation between Annie and Christy, a fake cousin who keeps her company over the phone, the novel delivers one of its most powerful reminders to women: “You bend over backwards to please that man, and if he doesn’t appreciate you, if he doesn’t realise how special you are, then you just have to do whatever you need to do to protect your own heart.”
In corners of the Internet where sentiments remain that women should return to old-fashioned, traditional roles of being housewives or that men will be better off when robot girlfriends powered by artificial intelligence are readily available as sexual partners, Annie Bot is the perfect clapback that one can only dream will reach such communities.
If you like this, read: My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell (William Morrow, 2020, $27.65, Amazon SG, go to amzn.to/48VvgGP). Shocking news about her former teacher and first love leads Vanessa to re-evaluate the tumultuous relationship that began when she was 15. As she confronts her past, she begins to wonder if a child can truly seduce an adult who claimed to love her more than anything.
