The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

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Title: The A.I. Who Loved Me
Author: Alyssa Cole
Published by: Audible Studios
Release Date: December 3, 2019
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Regina Hall, Mindy Kaling, Feodor Chin, Therese Plummer, Dina Pearlman, Neil Hellegers, Adenrele Ojo, Kyla Garcia
Length: 5 hours and 18 minutes
Genres: Romance, Science Fiction, Dystopian
Source: Audible Escape Package
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Diversity Reading Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon
My rating:

Blurb:

A captivating romantic comedy with a thrilling sci-fi twist by award-winning author Alyssa Cole!

Trinity Jordan leads a quiet, normal life: working from home for the Hive, a multifunctional government research center, and recovering from the incident that sent her into a tailspin. But the life she’s trying to rebuild is plagued by mishaps when Li Wei, her neighbor’s super sexy and super strange nephew, moves in and turns things upside down.

Li Wei’s behavior is downright odd—and the attraction building between them is even more so. When an emergency pulls his aunt away from the apartment complex, Trinity decides to keep an eye on him…and slowly discovers that nothing is what it seems. For one thing, Li Wei isn’t just the hot guy next door—he’s the hot A.I. next door. In fact, he’s so advanced that he blurs the line between man and machine. It’s up to Trinity to help him achieve his objective of learning to be human, but danger is mounting as they figure out whether he’s capable of the most illogical human behavior of all…falling in love.

My Review:

3.5 stars — I was excited for my first multi-cast audiobook, but I don’t think this is how it’s usually supposed to go, so it was a bit of a let down.  There’s this giant list of narrators, but they didn’t consistently do their characters voice, if that makes sense.  Like Mindy Kaling was the voice of Penny, but sometimes if a chapter was in Trinity’s POV, then Regina Hall would just voice Penny’s dialogue.  Which was initially a bit confusing to keep it all straight, and eventually just a bummer, because it’s nice to settle in with one thing.  It’s consistency, you know?  I’d rather have had it normal dual POV than this half-assed multicast.  But that’s just me.  Essentially I believe Regina Hall as Trinity, and Feodor Chin as Li Wei were our main narrators, and I liked them both…they were both solid.  Their pacing was great, their different character voices were pretty consistent, they conveyed emotions well.  I particularly liked how Mr. Chin’s narration for Li Wei changed as Li Wei himself developed in the story.

The other strange thing about this audiobook is that there were a lot of *other* sounds in it…from robotic noises, to mechanical noises, to even heartbeats and stuff.  In general I thought that was cool, but I can honestly say it startled the shit out of me on more than one occasion.  So I think I might prefer it without for the most part, just because it’s easier to listen to.

As for the story?  I found it hard to get sucked in for some reason…at least for the first half.  I think the style of the plot just didn’t work with my need to *know* all the answers.  I found myself confused a lot, and I think I had a harder time connecting with the characters at first, because their behaviors weren’t consistent.  I eventually figured out there was a lot of stuff going on in the background, and that Trinity herself was part of the mystery, and that helped a bit.  However, once Trinity finds out Li Wei is a synthetic humanoid whatever whatever?  The plot just picked up from there, and I was wholeheartedly invested.  I cried, I was anxious, I was puzzled…but it didn’t bother me quite as much.  I will admit that I still haven’t quite figured everything out, but I was okay with it because I’d fallen in love with the romance by that time.

What a strange group of secondary characters too.  They didn’t have HUGE roles, but they definitely played their parts…and I’m definitely still confused by a few of them.  Tim was HANDS DOWN my favourite though.

SO yeah.  While the first half of this book was more 3 star, the last part was definitely more 4-4.5.  I honestly have no idea who would enjoy it, but I’m glad I stuck it out to get the answers I did get.