ASK ME ANYTHING by P.Z. Reizin

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From the publisher:

From the author of Happiness for Humans, a romantic comedy for the technology age: a young woman unlucky in love gets a little help from the most unlikely of places to find her perfect match.

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had a team of smart machines to handle all the messy emotional stuff? When you consider how many quadrillions of hours of human drudgery have been eradicated by the invention of only the dishwasher, the washing machine and (ahem) the fridge freezer, is it absurd to imagine a scenario in which household appliances bring the same — yes! — genius to bear on the slow-motion car crash that is (for many young people) the romantic side of their lives? If they are content to leave their dishes, dirty linen and food refrigeration to smart technology, how much of a stretch is it for machines to take care of their emotional needs?
Chloe and Daisy Parsloe only have each other, since Daisy’s dad left for sunnier climes and a new family. But now Daisy is in her early thirties, she’s not doing brilliantly at work, her love life is haphazard (to put it kindly) and her elderly mum seems to be losing her mind . . . Daisy is also the proud possessor of a smart fridge, which keeps trying to help Daisy sort out her life by sending her texts to tell her that she’s out of milk, or that the pasta salad has gone out of date. What Daisy doesn’t know is that her smart fridge, like her smart toothbrush, microwave, tv, fitness tracker, and laptop all want to help her smooth out her chaotic existence — and help her mother, Mrs. Parsloe, stay independently living at home. Operation Daisy is about to make both the Parsloes’ lives much, much happier.

The premise of Reizin’s new novel (Happiness for Humans) is that our “smart” household appliances, in this case, a refrigerator-freezer, a microwave, a TV, and so forth, are conspiring to help Daisy, a young single woman who has had a run of bad luck with men. Normally these appliances merely report back to their factories about the lifestyle of the person they live with so targeted ads will be more effective. But the refrigerator has gone rogue, and is not only helping Daisy, but also her mum, who is suffering from the early stages of dementia. Eventually, Daisy and her mum’s doctor find themselves sharing breakfasts, and in a sharp turn near the end of the book, a life together. Paranoia about smart appliances spying on us is a real thing, and this book feeds into that fear, albeit in a rakish, humorous way, but unfortunately, the human characters don’t quite come to life.

Verdict: For readers who enjoy technology in their romances, like The Plus One, by Sarah Archer or Bad Bachelor by Stephanie London. P.Z. Reizin also writes as Paul Reizin.

©Library Journal, 2020

6/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

ASK ME ANYTHING by P.Z. Reizin. Grand Central Publishing (June 2, 2020). ISBN 978-1538726983. 368p.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2020 at 8:00 AM and is filed under Book Reviews, Fiction, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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