I could not get into this book. Peculiar to say the least. I pride myself on always finishing books but this one - well I found it incredibly odd and impossible to get into. Will definitely not be reading more of his books! Had to give one star ......

This is a book that takes you on an emotional journey - Jared is working as a dentist but dreams of other things, a 'bot, dreaming and feeling is not what you expect but as his days are numbered he goes on a journey and takes you with him. Some might find this slow paced and the narrative voice can be a bit clunky at times but there is great warmth, humour and heart in this quirky read that I loved.

A book that will leave you with a warm feeling. It is a real uplifting book with well established characters.
Thank you to both the publishers and NetGalley for gifting me this book

Original, warm, witty & poignant!
What more could you want from a book?
A delightful look at what it means to be human you won't want to miss.

Completely different from anything I have read before! Set in 2054, Jared is living in the age of bots, where bots have no emotions and feelings. However Jared soon develops feelings and thinks that he is malfunctioning, but he’s not!

A nice, uplifting book and Jared was a great character to read about! I loved his determination in showing humans that bots aren’t all bad. I enjoyed reading about the AI theme and it gets you thinking about what might lie ahead in the future.

I'm still not sure what I feel about this. Set in the near future, Jared is an android who starts to feel emotions. As a consequence, he's meant to be wiped, but instead he runs away to make a film to try and change people's minds about bots.

It's a great concept and clearly lots of people loved it, but I found it repetitive and could have benefited from some heavy editing. The characters were rather one dimensional as well, which made it difficult to keep going, much as I wanted to know what happens.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC without obligation.

Thank you to the publisher for my eARC copy of this book. Unfortunately I didn’t love this book and therefore didn’t finish, I just didn’t connect with this one. Not for me, sorry.

This is not my usual genre at all - I hate sci-fi, and sometimes find humorous novels a bit cringe….but I loved this!

Jared is a bot, in a future world which is both similar to ours and very different. He begins to experience feelings for the first time and the novel explores his adjustment to a new way of living.

I found the narrative voice really engaging and entertaining, and also enjoyed the frequent references to films.

This won’t be for everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A really unusual, blockbuster-esque read. It felt like a combination of the humour of Nathan Pyle's Strange Planet franchise, with the futuristic irreverence of Hunters and Collectors by M. Suddain. I really enjoyed Jared’s quirky observations, humorous misunderstandings and the fleeting glimpses of the imagined future offered through his story.

What a truly original book, loved Jared and I really enjoyed his story and reading him find himself, very quirky and a lovely little gem. Will recommend to others it was quite refreshing to read something different and this hit the spot 😃

DNF

I got about a quarter of the way through this book and just couldn’t bring myself to read any more.

Although different to my usual genre, I thought I would enjoy it and was encouraged by so many positive reviews.

Set in the 2050s, Jared is an Android who’s an efficient dentist. All goes well until he starts to develop feelings. This isn’t meant to happen and he receives an appointment to be wiped. He decides to run away and write a film, to change human perspective on bots.

What really annoyed me was Jared’s narrative. He repeats the same words and phrases over and over again and overuses exclamation marks. I found this really grated on me and annoyed me more the more I read.

I didn’t connect or like any of the characters, they all seemed very flat and boring.

Part of me wanted to power through and keep going to see if the book improved but I just couldn’t manage it.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t for me at all.

Thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate Harper Collins for a copy of this book.

This was the perfect book to cure my reading slump and despite the writing being repetitive (I CANNOT!), I enjoyed this one very much. Jared is a quirky character and I loved how he discovered himself being capable of feeling emotions. I loved the feelings wheel he religiously consults and how he saw everything this world has to give. But in retrospect, this book really could have been 100-150 pages shorter, since the repetitive style really did wear out at some point. But nevertheless, I enjoyed this funny tale and would recommend it to anyone in need of a pick-me-up.

I wanted to love it and it was well written but just not one for me. I started reading but only managed to get part way through before ‘ giving it a rest’. I’ve realised that I don’t want to go back and finish it , which is unusual for me. From the reviews it seems that lots of people have really enjoyed it so don’t let my review put you off !

Set My Heart to Five is one of the most original and quirky books I have read in a long time. Set in a near future where humans have destroyed most things on Earth (and the moon), this story is narrated by Jared, a bot made to look exactly like a human with one big difference: he has no capacity for feelings. Things become complicated for Jared once he realises that he is starting to experience feelings in spite of his programming and has to learn how to understand them with the help of his new friend Dr Gludenstein and lots of old movies. This brings him to the realisation that he must use his new understanding to write a movie of his own which will finally reconcile humans and bots... and become a fugitive in the process.

I found the book a bit hard to get into initially, particularly as I struggled to follow Jared's unique way of speaking and his constant use of expressions like "10/10" and "I cannot!". Once I got the hang of it though, I found this to be one of the most delightful reads this year. Jared's quest to prove that bots are not all murderous unfeeling machines becomes a touching reflection on what it means to be human and to love, while delicately raising questions around diversity and discrimination.

This book clearly doesn't take itself too seriously and there were several points where I laughed out loud. The parallels between Jared's journey and the movies he enjoys were great fun, and actually made me want to brush up on some classical movies I have yet to watch. One thing I struggled with though was Jared's over-explaining. It was entirely fitting with his character, but ended up feeling repetitive and slowed the book down quite a lot. Part of the middle section felt especially dragging, but the ending more than made up for it. I was having ALL the feelings too!

Overall, this was a great discovery, and I'm glad I stuck with it despite the initial struggle. I laughed, I cried, and I fell in love with this little toaster with a heart.

Funny, poignant and original this tells a tale of robot interaction with humans. The main character is the robot, Jared, who starts exploring the human world of emotions. Not my usual choice of novel but I did find it intriguing,
My thanks to Net Galley, the publisher and author for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

Ha!
This book.
I cannot!

I loved the premise of this book. A dentistry bot called Jared, living in a 2054 dystopia that somehow doesn't sound all that far-fetched, suddenly starts developing feelings. No longer happy to be just a dentist and inspired by old movies, he sets out to change humans' idea of robots the only way he knows how: by writing his own movie. That way, humans can see that fictional bots are capable of emotions. Logic dictates that humans will then start to see real bots as emotional beings and they'll show them more respect and give them more freedom. And all of this sounds like such an interesting story! But the execution, ay ay...

At first the unusual writing style, with a lot of stilted sentences in a first-person perspective, felt like the obvious choice. Jared is a robot and obviously as a reader you don't expect robots to sounds like humans. But I assumed that as Jared got further into his emotional awakening, his speech patterns would adapt. They didn't. He kept repeating the same five catchphrases (Ha! This thing! I cannot! 10/10! The worst!) that the reader was introduced to on the first page, and the abundance of exclamation marks actually started to get on my nerves.

I feel like this tried a bit too hard to be a sharp-witted commentary on human behaviour. It might have worked in a shorter form, but this grew old very quickly. And I'm genuinely sad about that, because I wanted to love this. The idea was good, the pop culture references were good, some of the humour really worked. But the combination of everything was just too bloated and tedious to enjoy.

Not my normal type of book but I gave it a go as I received an ARC from netgalley and I'm so pleased I did.
Funny, poignant and original this tells a tale of robot interaction with humans. The main character is the robot, Jared, who starts exploring the human world of emotions, resulting in him running away and taking on a different persona.
Strange and entertaining I recommend giving it a go!

This is far too long and boring.
The main character appears to have too describe every fine detail of there life which tends to become repetitive.
This was not for me and is one I did not finish after attempting twice.

Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson is a beautiful and heartwarming read that you will never forget.
The book is an emotional roller coaster ride that you will not forget. It makes you laugh out loud, it makes you cry. But ultimately it’s a beautiful and heartwarming story.

A story that you cannot help but engage your friends and loved ones in a discussion about what it means to be human, handing over a copy of the book so they too can be swept up in Jared’s story and all the references to old movies, makes this a book that must be shared.

This is a new take on a coming of age story. Jared is living in the future, 2054 to be exact, when bots are the norm and currency is bitcoin. Everyone knows that bots are not supposed to have feelings but Jared discovers that he has developed them.

This was a really sweet and uplifting read with a lot of humour and witty observations. Jared was such a lovable character and I enjoyed following his journey to get a film to screen that would show humans that not all bots are bad. It highlights some of the bizarre traits we have as humans and is a fun take on the AI theme. I can't wait to see this as movie!