83. Unboxing Libby

83. Unboxing Libby. Steph Cherrywell. 320 pages. [Source: Library] [3 stars, MG Fiction, MG speculative fiction, MG science fiction]

First sentence: My mom saved the clothes I was born in. I asked her once why she bothered, when they were the same yellow T-shirt and jeans with floral decals that every Libby comes with. She said it wasn't the same, because these were mine.

Premise/plot: Unboxing Libby is set on Mars in a robot colony of sorts. Libby Maxwell (aka MAX) IS an A.I.Cademy Girl, a "social robot." She's one of a product line of social robots. Each robot has a preprogrammed personality and memories. (There's Libby, Giselle, Nora, Robin, Izzy, Miracle, Roxanne, Wendy, Sam.) They do not interact with other humans--not really. They just socialize with other robots. They live in houses with robot parents and attend schools with robot teachers. Though to be fair, all of the robots are twelve years old, so I'm not sure how many classes and teachers are needed! The food they eat is construction paper with words written on it.

Max (our Libby) is different from the other Libby robots. She has her own personality, she is defying her programs and "malfunctioning." The more she interacts with the other robots, the more individuality is celebrated. But the powers that be--the humans on Mars--are not happy with their disposable "cheap" robots thinking for themselves, expressing themselves, and wanting to make their own decisions. Max may just have to save all the robots.

My thoughts: I wanted to love this one. SET ON MARS. ROBOTS. Robot "dolls" or companions that have their own stories, clothes, accessories, pets, videos, etc. The premise seemed like it had a lot of potential. But I am an overthinker. For better or worse. And I just wasn't sure about the world-building. Robot companions for humans makes sense--particularly children, particularly for childless couples perhaps. But robot parents with robot children living robot lives, I'm just not 100% sure how that works. Do all robots come in two sizes? adult and child? I'm assuming that neither ever grows, changes, ages, develops, etc. So are they just twelve forever and ever and ever? Same with the parents? The humans seem to be distrustful of the robots. Yet the robots just didn't appear out of nowhere. Someone had to order them, ship them, unpack them, turn them on, etc. So why?

The message of Max--who does have a malfunction of sorts, though it's seen as a blessing--is that she has been programmed with TWO sets of personalities and memories. She's both a LIBBY and a ROXANNE and her programming is in conflict since the personalities are different from one another. She's neither a Libby nor a Roxanne. She could never be happy "being Libby" or "being Roxanne" she is both. So there does seem to be some semi-subtle messaging going on.

 

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