Liv is a seventeen year old programmer competing for an internship with the Department of Recreational Computation, or DoRC. The contest? Program an AI that can get through set challenges in a virtual world before Spring Break ends. After giving her AI, Breck, the ability to dream, he blazes through the first challenge and begins to develop at an alarming pace. Her digital breakthroughs are hard to celebrate, however, as her mother fails to maintain the family's toy store and her best friend's father's new job will have her moving across the country. Could Breck's newly discovered sentience and sapience help in these situations?

So... I'll admit fault here. I downloaded this book expecting a human x AI romance, and that is not what this is. It is, however, a science fiction novel about artificial intelligence, which is usually my cup of tea. Unfortunately, this book fell flat for me. Maybe part of it is me being sick the generative AI garbage that's all over the internet--what Liv is developing with Breck isn't that, thankfully, but things like ChatGPT and Dall-E scraping work from writers and artists because Silicon Valley bros don't respect us has made me pull a face every time AI gets mentioned. The author, Steve Schafer, mentions in the back of the book that he might use ChatGPT for his future novels, which doesn't give me much confidence for his later novels.

The biggest issue I have with 'eMortal' is how clinical the writing is. The characters themselves don't have distinctive voices, everything is told and not shown (there are at least three instances of the narrator saying they summarized the situation for a character, when the situation could have been summarized by the character in one line of dialogue. Especially with how 'woe is me' Liv is, I think it'd give us some character insight or flavor to have her word on the situation instead of nothing), and so much dialogue is repetitive and choppy with random motivational speeches thrown in. Lana and Liv are supposed to be seventeen year olds but act much younger. Maybe it'd be a stretch to make Liv a coding prodigy at fourteen or fifteen, but I think that would justify her emotional outbursts with her mother and her best friend situation more than having her almost college aged. I'm saying this as a former teen girl--that's definitely the age where I'd have sneaked onto the computer after being grounded.

The most boring thing to read, and something that takes up a lot of the book, are the simulations in Breck's digital world. Reading these parts felt like when my friend in the early 2000s would describe the Sims houses she built over the phone. Even if my imagination is great, it's not exactly the most exciting thing to think about. Making these parts even worse is that Breck speaks and thinks in a robotic way for about 50% of the book, without contractions or emotion. I understand why this is happening, but having to live inside his mind while he's talking about walking past people wearing red shirts and green shirts is agonizing. I feel like a lot of this book could have been condensed and Breck could have gained sentience earlier, since he's a much more interesting character afterwards and a lot of the other plot threads are just background noise.

Despite my complaints, there are nuggets of ideas that I like in 'eMortal'. The parallels to 'Frankenstein' are hard to ignore, and a scientist who loves her own creation but thinks that putting him out of his misery might be what's best for him are compelling. The twist came too late and felt unearned, but I think it was interesting and if the book wasn't such a slog to read I might want to go back and look for hints. There's also the question of students' passions being copyrighted so they no longer have rights to them and government programs taking advantage of teens who aren't financially stable, which are themes that YA books could and should explore! Unfortunately, these are only glossed over, but since the story is bloated enough as it is, maybe it's a good thing that it didn't find an extra path to explore.

This engaging, fast-paced read weaves philosophical questions about AI and consciousness into the story of Liv, a high school coder, and Breck, the program she creates to navigate video-game-like puzzles in a government-sponsored contest. The story was easy to dive into, even though, admittedly, it's not usually the kind of story I gravitate towards. But if you're a fan of murderbot, then you'll probably enjoy eMortal too, but less pew-pew and more conversation around ethics.

• I appreciate the passionate portrayal of Liv investing her soul into coding her program alongside her best (and only) friend, Lana, hyping her up and supporting her on her journey. Specifically, I loved how tight-knit they were, next-door neighbors and would just drop by to hang out. It reminds me of my childhood during simpler times, when we just knocked on a neighbor kid's door and ask if they could come out to play, unannounced; such a stark contrast to today where everything is scheduled now--at least for me, since we all be adults adulting now.

• I also appreciated the philosophical and ethical questions brought up surrounding creating intelligent life forms--albeit sometimes it did slow the story down a bit, compared to the portions that were like go, go, go, solve the puzzles before the clock runs out.

Drawbacks/Perhaps a "Me" Problem: Portrayal of Programming and AI
As a software engineer, it was definitely trying for me to turn on my suspension of disbelief when it came to the programming aspects--specifically with how Liv actually gave Breck consciousness/made him intelligent.
• Some portrayals of the programming itself that made my eye twitch that maybe would be akin to, say, a lawyer in real life screaming at their television when watching a dramatized version of their profession, like How to Get Away with Murder: "what...thats not how that works?!" 😂
• Specifically in the opening chapters, Breck cannot escape the room he spawns in, and Liv ponders on how to make her dumb program smarter. (She didn't go as far as to say "hmm how do I give my program consciousness, but that is ultimately what, as the books blurb informs you of, happens.)
• The intelligence-boosting solution? To program Breck to sleep for


"neural repairing, purging, reprocessing, dreams. All that stuff"


• ...what? That's as inane as saying let's program your phone to have a human heart so it can pump more energy and work faster.
• And other parts I was saying "why in the world would the government not just whitelist who can make requests to their VPCs to truly block out ppl from interfering with their bots after they start the challenge? It's not like Liv suddenly became a redhat and could hack the government if they did" (this is sorta kinda answered later, but it still made my eye twitch that Liv the programmer wouldn't question something like this.)
• And they take "learning" in machine learning to mean learning like a human, but Breck is trapped in a virtual world with very little examples of how non-NPCs work, so how would he have learned to act like a human on many aspects--I'm talking about speech cadence not not sound robotic, fluidity in movement, and all the cognitive Piaget phases that Breck should go through psychologically develop as a human.
• Some of the psychological things can be innate, if Liv programmed Breck so, but others would be learned, just like humans IRL learn from nature vs. nurture. Also there seems to be a bigger emphasis on Liv developing some suped up algorithm, but a lot of what Breck would've learned would actually be more focused on giving him plain ol' bigger tagged data sets to consume rather than tweaking of his code itself (I recommend reading The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI for a deeper explanation that lay folks could understand)

ANYWAYS, once I we get past the "give him consciousness" portion and onto the challenges portion, these annoyances largely went away for me to enjoy the more video-game-like problem solving aspects to the story. And for a YA novel I was grateful to find it devoid of any boyfriend drama angst (the mom needs therapy though, gees).

Thank you @Netgalley and @KoehlerBooks for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Liv is a high school student who enters a coding contest for the chance to win a dream internship for aspiring programmers. Breck is the AI character who is trying to work his way through a series of challenges while beginning to question reality.

This book is enjoyable and mind-melting at times with it's many layers of meta-cognition. I devoured this book and was left wanting so much more in the best way possible. This book gave me the biggest book hangover where I just sat and stared at the wall questioning everything I've ever known. I love the complexities surrounding Breck and how it's juxtaposed with Liv's struggles in the outside world. I think this book will be one of my top reads of 2024.

Thank you @Netgalley and @KoehlerBooks for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Read if you’re into:
- Alternating short fast-paced chapters
- Speculative AI sci-fi
- Reflections on life, what it means to be human, emotions and AI ethics

I've nearly read this in one sitting, I say nearly because at one point I had to go to sleep and put this down but if I wasn't a responsible adult I had carried on reading through the night, because this book was un-putdownable.

I wrote this right after I finished it: WOW! wow! WOW! I’m speechless. I’m honestly left with no words, I didn’t see that plot twist coming (isn’t it the best when that happens?) and gosh is it a good one. And nearly 24 hours later I still feel exactly the same, I don't have the right words to express how good this book is, it shot right into my top3 of the year.

While the story is obviously different, as I was reading I got the same vibes I had felt when reading the "Everyday" series by David Levithan (which is my top favourite book of all time, so this is saying something about how much I've loved this book).

I’ve also personally found a lot of comfort in this part of the book “I can either enjoy what remains or allow it to torture me. I may not have control over much, but I do have control over my reaction, my experience. I consider this along with Sam’s perspective. I do not have to worry about whether it will end—it will. Nor do I have to worry about suffering alone in it—I won’t. And, because I do not have the worry, there is no distress. I choose to accept my fate. Doing so allows me to find comfort in it. My thoughts soon find a peaceful place where they have seldom existed—here and now. Happiness is existing in this moment”. Along with many other quotes and parts of the book it made me think a lot about life and what it means to be human, I love when that unexpectedly happens while reading.

This book was soooo gooood! I read it so quickly, all in one go! I could barely put it down!
And I was not expecting that ending at all. That was so unexpected but so good, I don’t even know how the author thought that up, but it was amazing!
I saw someone say that this book will melt your brain and I full agree with that! Just wow!

The concept of this was great! The writing however, wasn't. It was choppy and full of short abrupt sentences. This was a DNF for me.due to the writing style.

"First graders pretending to type do not slap at the keyboard with this intensity"
"How would I be able to distinguish between real and imagined, if everything feels real to me?"
This book was different form what I usually read, its a sci-fi book with a lot of thought provoking philosophy sprinkled with funny snarky teenager comments. I had a good time reading this book and I believe readers of all ages can gain something by reading this book.

What I liked:
- the book makes you think. There are so many directions this could go, you could be pondering about the ethics of AI and its treatment, or go back full matrix and wonder whats the point. For such a short book with a superficially simple story there is so much more depth to it and I really enjoyed how the author gives all these impulses to think further
- the side characters and side story to the book only enhance the previous point and has you thinking about human interaction, family, friends, differences in communication etc.
- the book has some funny bits, not forced but just makes sense

What I didnt like:
- to properly capture a being becoming sentient/conscious it extremely difficult, nevertheless having recently read flowers for algernon where the protagonist does not gain conscience but gets smarter, i felt like here it was not as well portrayed how that change came to be.
- the ending...without spoilers I just feel like all of what I liked about this book could have had the same impact without the ending being the way it was. I just didnt like it and then the ending to the ending was just,,, I dont even know where to start. So sadly no 5 stars

ARC Copy...It was interesting yes to see how both POV protagonists develop as humans and "real things" in their respective worlds plus...hmm the ending threw me for a loop. Not telling what it was!!!

eMortal by Steve Schafer is a science fiction novel with a unique twist.

4 out of 5 stars.

I couldn't put this down. It really drew me in and I found myself actually getting annoyed everytime that I was interrupted.
The main character is Liv and Liv is creating a computer program for a competition. This sometimes goes well, but other times life gets in the way... Or is it the other way around? Is Brock getting in the way of Liv's life?!

Insane twist, I was really caught off guard by that one.

Interesting plot line, fantastic character growth and surprising twists. This is definitely a book worth picking up and reading.

"eMortal" is a thought-provoking novel that deftly explores the blurred lines between artificial intelligence and humanity, compelling readers to question their very existence in our increasingly digital world. The story focuses on Liv (short for Olivia), a high-school student navigating between her beloved summer break contest project, Breck, and her fraught relationship with her mother.

As news of her best friend's impending move to another state breaks, Liv and her companion push the boundaries of Liv’s AI creation, Breck, propelling it to advance at an unprecedented rate catching the attention of the game masters. The author's skilful narrative weaves a tapestry of tension and trials that Breck endures, keeping readers thoroughly engrossed throughout the book.

Perhaps the most infuriating character I found in the book is Liv's mother. Despite being a parent myself, I found her unrelenting selfishness and misguided desire to recreate her own upbringing for her child rather one-dimensional. Her consistent failure to comprehend her daughter's interests and aspirations serves as a stark reminder of the generational divide often exacerbated by technological advancements.

The novel's ending, showing a reconciliation between Liv and her mother, underscores the universal theme of wanting to be understood. This resolution, while somewhat predictable, adds a layer of emotional depth to the book.

The book’s ending leaves readers pondering long with more questions after the final page is turned. It's a hidden gem that adeptly balances weighty themes with accessible prose, making it an ideal companion for your leisure reading list. Whether you're lounging on a sun-drenched beach or curled up in your favourite armchair, this book stimulate both your mind and imagination.

This was absolutely incredible!! My jaw is on the floor. eMortal will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. The premise of the story dives deep into the implications of technology and AI, the world of coding and whether or not AI can be sentient.

The characters are incredibly well developed, each grappling with their own unique struggles which they deal with differently. Liv and Lana are best friends and while they are the same in some aspects, they have opposites. Which is the same for Breck and Sam, they are the same, but they are DIFFERENT, you know? The way this book delves into AI and the thought process of it all is amazing. I’m struggling to put into words how truly spectacular this book is!! It’s a lot deeper than I thought it would be and I couldn’t stop reading, the physical reactions I had were incredible.

Liv is my favourite, her actions and reactions to things, her character development; it’s all so amazing. I of course loved Breck and all the other characters too. This book really made me sit there and think, it really leaves you wondering about A LOT. And I usually don’t enjoy Sci-Fi but this?? LOVE LOVE LOVE!

What truly sets eMortal apart are the unexpected twists and turns that the author expertly weaves throughout the narrative. Just when you think you have everything figured out, the plot takes a thrilling turn that leaves you breathless. And will make you literally sit up in shock (I should know cause it was my reaction) The pacing is spot-on, ensuring that there's never a dull moment. The climax is both satisfying and thought provoking which will leave you to think about the story long after you finish it.

I’m not sure my review even does this book justice, all I know is that you 100% should without a doubt GET THIS BOOK!!

Phenomenal! Had me at the edge of my seat the whole way. Very topical subject matter about AI and the nature of reality.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review! This was a hidden gem of a novel, one I was not able to put down and will have me thinking about it for a very long time. It is self-aware, smart and feels current with the rise of AI, chat GPT, character AI and whatnot. After reading so many novels that follow the same trend, this felt refreshing like palette cleanser.

This book messes with your head!! It was so much deeper than I thought it would be and it poses many thought provoking questions that will make you think deeply and reflect. This is a book I highly recommend reading at least once for the experience. I still cannot get over that ending and I don’t think I ever will! Books like these are my favorite as they leave a significant impact and challenge what you already know or think you know.

This book is a dual POV novel that essentially follows Olivia, our FMC, and Breck, the AI that she creates and enters into an AI competition in the hopes of winning and landing an internship. There, Breck undergoes a series of challenges that he must pass in order for Livie to win. I love the different trials he goes through. They were unpredictable but I also loved how it helped to progress his growth and character development. I definitely recommend all the Psychology students to pick this book up – you’ll recognize a particular theory in this and I love how it’s integrated into the story. I loved Breck’s journey of self-discovery and seeing him become more human-like, forming his own thoughts and opinions, and I love how this was reflected in the writing style! Breck’s early chapters started off short and robotic and then as the book progressed the writing became more fluid and eloquent as he developed. I thought it was so smart! Breck is someone you care deeply for and easily sympathize with, and not just Breck. All the characters are memorable and fleshed out. The conflict scenes in this book work so well because you understand where each of them is coming from and their reactions feel justified. Major shoutout to Todd and Lana, my favorite side characters in the story.

All in all, this book put me through all the emotions and resonated with me deeply. I love the thought-provoking questions and the ending has me wanting more!! Breck is also someone you can talk to on the author’s website and I think that is so cool.

Left me with a feeling of wonder!

Liv enters a competition to create an AI character that can solve a riddle. Liv’s character Breck seems fairly intelligent and when she writes a code that will allow him to sleep (rest and reboot) the competition leader takes notice. Along with the stress of wanting to win the AI competition and internship, Liv tries to help her mother revive the family toy store that belonged to her grandfather. This becomes more difficult than creating a character and writing code. She and her mother struggle to see each other’s point of view and this just causes arguments and frustration. With perseverance, will Liv win and be able to help her mom or will it all be too much?

Likes/dislikes: I normally struggle with enjoying science fiction but this is a fun read! I love the lead into the ending and the ending itself. I enjoyed the humor and the realistic characters. I admired the perseverance of the characters.
Mature content: G
Language: PG-13 for 34 swears, no f-words.
Violence: G
Ethnicity: falls to white.

If you're interested in books that have AI, you'll like this one. The plot was so interesting and really makes you think about what it means to be human. My only gripe is I wish the author spent more time world building. This is one world I'd like to be more immersed in as a reader.

I loved this book. Fantastic first chapter that instantly hooked me. I am such a fan of books that have artificial intelligence at its core. Loved this book and I look forward to reading more books in this genre.

this book has got everything you could want: a mind-blowing premise, interesting characters, and a plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The story follows Dr. Alex Brennan, a neuroscientist who gets caught up in a crazy conspiracy involving AI and immortality. The whole idea of living forever is super intriguing, and Schafer explores it from all angles. It's like he's asking us to question what it means to be human and what the future holds for us.

The characters are pretty cool too. Alex is a badass female scientist, and I love that. The other characters are well-developed and add a lot to the story.

There were a couple of parts where I felt like the pace slowed down a bit, and that didn't bother me too much. However, I think the book could have benefited from a bit more world-building. Sometimes, it felt like the author was just throwing out random technological terms without really explaining how they worked or fit into the overall world. If he had spent more time fleshing out the setting, I think the story would have felt even more immersive.