An elevator pitch: unnamed robot and snarky cybernetic dog sidekick in post-apocalyptic, post-war New York get pushed out of isolation while confronting their past and figuring out who they are and who they choose to be

Despite being a story about war and destruction, this is a warm and hopeful story at its core. The protagonist accumulates a found family across the book. It's about folks helping each other and rebuilding where they can. It's about grief and coming to grips with your past.

If you've read Suzanne Palmer's The Secret Life of Bots, you'll have a sense of her delightful writing style around robots. The whole book feels incredibly quotable and it's hard for me not to post even more quotes than I already have.

I think what didn't work for me is that it was almost too cozy? It's not Monk and Robot, don't get me wrong. But new characters continue to show up and immediately join the party without much discussion or even internal contemplation. Also, despite (or because of) adding additional characters throughout, I felt like only the protagonist had real depth. The ending had some elements that felt a little bit too pat to me in a way that didn't leave me satisfied and similarly some of the dialogue made the hopefulness feel a little bit too much told rather than shown.

All that said, the vibes were really good and I enjoyed this a bunch. If you need a hopeful book about robots, would recommend.