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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️+

I finished this book and the-lump-in-the-throat test cannot be denied. This book is a first class heart breaker, albeit one with a strangely hopeful tone balancing out what at first glance seems affectingly tragic.

A science or speculative fiction instant classic, “Kara and the Sun” is about AI and technology and the lengths humans will go to in their attempts to prevent loneliness. At the same time, it is a book of wonder – wonder at the depths of emotion, the yearnings of the heart, and the mysteries of life itself and who (or what) if anyone (or anything), is out there watching over us.

Throughout it all, you can’t help but wonder – just how much of life, love, and faith are “human” traits after all?

Klara is a robot, an AF, (you will learn what this means deeper into the book)- with a keen intelligence and a set of “emotions” you would swear are human. Programmed to love and protect her special owner, (a sickly teen of fourteen, named Josie ), Klara has both an admirable and astounding grasp of facts and data, and a child-like innocence rooted in her intuitive faith in the incomprehensible steps she believes will serve her mission to protect and serve a much-cherished Josie.

Born in a world where the Sun provides robotic sustenance, the solar-powered AFs are chillingly human, with their personalities, wants, yearnings and need to know and understand their surroundings. Klara is particularly endearing – as the author shares her perceptions with us, we ARE her, glimpsing the world through her field of vision, which seems to become segmented and fractured under strain (both emotional and power-based). Klara is a robot unlike any I have encountered – a joyous and poignant creation you can’t help but want to hug and hold safe, in a world which seems to vastly undervalue her.

I love, loved this book. In a future so badly damaged that generations of teenagers must be trained to know how to “interact” with each other (not really that far a reach at all from our current state), it is perhaps no surprise that bigger and bigger imprints of technology are both vilified and socially necessitated. Which comes, of course, with all the surrounding thorny and fascinating ethical issues you might expect, including some you have likely not yet considered.

One of the best books I’ve read, certainly on the list for the top books of 2021, and highly recommended, – I will be reading this book again, and no doubt thinking about it in the meanwhile.