Product Description
In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko's every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she's too old to want to keep them anymore.
Reviews/Praise
"In this profoundly inquisitive and compelling novel, Romano-Lax sets timeless human dilemmas involving love, racism, misogyny, violence, grief, and dissent against environmental decimation, the daunting ethical questions raised by burgeoning AI, and consideration of the very future of humanity." —Booklist Starred Review
“Wiley captures Angelica’s feelings of loneliness in a foreign land and, in slightly accented speech, reveals her limited language skills and scant knowledge of cultural norms. Her sensitive reading creates sympathy with the main characters and even Hiro, the prototype robot with a heart.” —Booklist Starred Review Audio
"[Romano-Lax's] spin on the genre focuses on an elderly woman and a male android, a dynamic that provides the novel with its most original and engaging material. The thoughtful depictions of old age, memory, and trauma are refreshing. This is a compelling, enjoyable addition to the genre. A well-written, entertaining novel that both enacts and subverts the tropes of android fiction." —Kirkus Reviews
"This quietly thoughtful read sits at the crossroads of literary and speculative fiction and will attract readers of both genres, especially those interested in exploring the consequences of present-day policies and the boundaries of artificial intelligence and human/robotic relationships." —Library Journal
Praise for Andromeda Romano-Lax "Impressive and richly atmospheric." —The New York Times Book Review
"Riveting." —People Magazine