Review of How Can I Help You Today?
Thanks to Partners in Crime Book Book Tours and author Julia L. Rule for the opportunity to read How Can I Help You Today? Ever since I received this book I could not get Julia L. Rule off my mind. Not because of her book (not true, OF COURSE because of her book - scroll down for my review) but also because she has no online presence. I didn't even get an author's pic to post. Which of course has made me obsessed with her. Is Julia L. Rule her real name? (Probably not). Did she just make it up or does it have some symbolic meaning? She lives in Switzerland so naturally in my mind I've made her a grown-up modern day version of Heidi. Which she probably isn't. Maybe she has a purple Mohawk. Maybe she's a big burly rugby player. Maybe she's an eighty year old grandma who plays a pianoforte. Well, enough about Julia. Let's move on to her thriller How Can I Help You Today?
More about How Can I Help You Today?
At Ashwood High, everyone uses Pulse. It offers perfect, convincing advice at your fingertips. Always available, always validating.
Emma needs a scholarship. Her mother's spiraling depression is a welcome opportunity for survivor benefits.
Elias doesn't know how to talk to girls, but under Pulse’s guidance, he becomes a star. He might need some serious therapy now, though.
Riley only cares about increasing her follower count. Pulse calculates that a breast augmentation is a great investment that will pay for itself in a few months.
How Can I Help You Today? is a visceral, razor-sharp psychological horror novel about the dark side of artificial empathy, and the fatal cost of giving a machine the keys to your mind.
More about Julia L. Rule
Julia L. Rule writes about the monsters that live inside our devices. Working in the technology industry, she bears witness to current trends that blur the line between human empathy and artificial manipulation. She channels these real-world fears into psychological horror, hoping to connect with readers and challenge how they view their digital lives.
Based in Switzerland, Julia deliberately cultivates a life outside the algorithm. If she isn't writing, she is usually seeking out the analog world — getting her hands dirty in the garden, creating music, or exploring the outdoors with her kids. How Can I Help You Today? is her latest novel.
Catch Up with Julia L. Rule
Thoughts about How Can I Help You Today?
How to describe How Can I Help You Today? Gritty. Pulling back the curtain on a teen world I don't really know. Frightening. Unbelievable...yet believable. The idea behind this book - a chat bot that starts playing with people like puppets - was amazing. But I must admit that in the middle I thought about DNF because this book was a lot for me. Perhaps this book addresses too many issues? Suicide, bullying, sexual issues, eating disorders, anxiety, the death of a child, substance abuse are just a few found within the story. Take the trigger warnings seriously.
My main complaint was that there were so many characters, each dealing with a serious issue, that I occasionally lost the thread of how they were connected. But I understand why the author did it. In keeping with the obsession with online life, many of the characters barely knew each other in real life, even though they all attended the same high school. So it did lead to some paging back and forth to figure out who did what to whom and when.
This is a book for people who want to stare horror in the face -- or screen.
Ready to Read
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