Tell the Machine Goodnight: A Novel Hardcover – June 19, 2018

The futuristic setting and usage of technology that does not yet exist are typical characteristics of science fiction. The Apricity machine, named after an ancient word that means "the feeling of sun on one's skin in the winter," is the major piece of technology that is introduced . The Apricity machine's task is to analyze a person's DNA and produce a detailed list of things that will make that person happier. Other developments, such as a house management system (HMS) that monitors information like the time and location of lights turning on and off or the arrivals and departures of people, are useful rather than fantasy, although this world is yet two decades away. The Apricity machine's main visual purpose is to enable readers to imaginatively explore areas of our reality that would otherwise be off-limits, including the genetic knowledge of emotions. The Apricity device can read our genetic make-up and provide a customized happiness program. The computer considerably reduces a human's time spent looking for happiness, and the author is aware that every person has a different path to finding it. The goods for our happiness may ask a customer to confront a hidden self or a shadow side because Apricity reads our genetic information. But this self-examination of whether or not to heed Apricity's counsel is left beyond the domain of the machine.It is not surprising that the novel includes devotion to Apricity's happy lists combined with a brand-new topical medication called Zom which means short for Zombie, which renders users susceptible to suggestions from others. The Apricity machine and Zom are both capable of suspending reason.If you appreciate reading well-written, unique science fiction, I would suggest the book, but if you're seeking for anything new to read with an engaging story, I wouldn't. As I read the first few chapters, I was sucked in right away by the characters and the idea of the Apricity machine. The novel was made even more interesting to read by Pearl's profession and Rhett's relatability, and the author's writing style and diction were distinctive and engrossing. For instance, the author explores etymologies in one chapter and incorporates a character's journal entries in another. But as the narrative went on, I saw that I was getting a little lost in all of the many stories.

In "Tell the Machine Goodnight", I believe this book is great for science fiction lovers and a gentle read. This story mainly follows a woman named Pearl, who is a handler of machines that guides people to their happiness. As we follow Pearl and her interactions with the individuals in her life, we see where she has flaws and misconceptions in her life that cause her discomfort. While reading, Williams introduced new characters that are involved in Pearl's life, like her ex-husband and his new lover, Pearl's son, coworkers, and her clients. Each character has a new level of development and complexity centered around the machine. To create complexity, we first meet these characters as blank slates; however, as the tale progresses, we are exposed to their vulnerable spots as Williams breaks down the character's strengths to reveal their flaws and dark secrets. I enjoy this darker and more thrilling reveal of the characters as it exposes the gritty reality of the human nature is composed of while trying to achieve fabricated happiness.As I read the novel, I found many poetic themes and situations that make you question real-life scenarios relating to our involvement in technology. Although Williams published this book in 2018, she tries to add a fantasy theme to the story, but it feels more like a prediction about what life will be like soon. This theme adds an eerie and unsettling feeling about the possibility of having this type of technology potentially so close in time. In my opinion, I was very intrigued by the storyline, and Williams incorporated many complex layers and ideas about the characters. However, I felt like the story was cut short in a rushed manner, and I felt like I was left with not as much closure and felt like I was left with only partial information, or chapters were removed from the story. Although this may be the case, there are many satisfying instances where you understand the unsaid intricacy of the machine's grasp on human emotions. But I still recommend this book for an intriguing read about technology and achieving happiness.

I see the novel, Tell the Machine Goodnight, taking place in a contemporary fiction element where technology is being used to find your sense of happiness in a world that is similar, but far different from the one we live in. In the world we live in today, every where I go I not only see one person, but hundreds of people on their phones, not opening their eyes to the real world. This is because technology brings us a sense of happiness that cannot be brought from other things, this same idea is portrayed in the novel. Pearl, the mother of Rhett, works for the creators of Apricity, which created a device that tells you exactly what you need to do to feel happier. Pearl's job is to read people their Apricity results that often people will use instantly because they want instant gratification. Rhett is a teenager who is getting ready to leave for college and suffers from anorexia, which brings tons of worry and stress to Pearl. Pearl is constantly trying different things to bring happiness to Rhett, when she does not really know the real reason behind why he is so stubborn to talking to her about his struggles. To make this situation even more difficult, Pearl is divorced with Rhett's biological father, Elliot. Elliot and his new wife, Valeria, struggle with communication and end up hiding things from one another in order to keep the other safe. The different narrative perspectives in which this novel shifted from one to next in each chapter allowed me, the reader, to get a deeper understanding of what was going through the mind of each character. These shifts at time were abrupt happening during times of importance where the story was just about to be getting deeper. I think from all the different chapters each character displays the sense of attempting to find happiness and fulfillment while having no connection to real world surrounding them.

If you ever find yourself thinking, "man the cover of this book is so beautiful, the writing and plotline must be equally beautiful", sorry to break it to you, but that can't be farther from the truth.The book started off with an interesting concept, and yet by the third chapter, you will be looking in the trash for the receipt to see if it's too late to return it. The problem isn't the concept, but the author lacks to tell a unique and engaging story around the idea. The plot you may ask? I to ask, what of it, its nowhere to be found. The book constantly changes perspective between characters so much that developing a plotline is impossible. Now on to the characters...The lead character Pearl, is so average and boring that you will never really find yourself rooting for her. It's not that she's bad but just forgettable. Rhett is Pearl's son and is a driving character in the only interesting part of this book. Unfortunately, none of the questions asked about this character ever get answered. There are characters in this book besides these two, yet they're so forgettable that I struggle to write about them in this review.All in all, if the machine were to tell me what would make me happy, it would say don't read this book.- Chancellors Book Club

The novel starts on an intriguing premise - that here, in the near future, there's a machine called Apricity which on the basis of a quick DNA sample, can instantly tell you what you must do to attain happiness. Sometimes these suggestions are obvious, along the lines of getting more exercise or sleep, taking up a particular hobby or moving your desk into the window. Sometimes, however, the suggestions are more sinister - one man is told to arrange to have the tip of a finger surgically removed for reasons we never discover. Then, there are the people made happy by actions or events too transgressive to be revealed to them, which are replaces in the report by a row of asterisks.So far, so good - the exposition is well written, interesting, and draws you into the novel. We are initially introduced to Pearl, divorced Apricity technician and mother of Rhett, recovering anorexic teenager. the novel proceeds chapter by chapter like a literary relay race, moving first from Pearl to Rhett and his various schoolfriends, then to Pearl's boss Carter, her artist ex-husband Elliot and his new wife Valeria, and so on.The constant change of viewpoint character ought to keep the narrative fresh and interesting as we see the history and context of events through different eyes, but Kate Williams, though a talented writer, is no Lawrence Durrell, and eventually I began to lose interest in the story - especially as there's no really satisfying conclusion to any of the story strands. It's really just a short period in these people's lives, loosely braided together with no real pattern or destination. I was expecting the book to have more to say about the nature of happiness and the lengths people will go to pursue it, but that didn't really emerge strongly enough for me. The metaphor that shouts loudest is probably Eliot's self-destructive attempt to turn Apricity results into performance art by overdosing on its suggestions, but other storylines tail off and disappear as the characters driving them fade into invisibility.This is the author's first adult novel after a couple of YA ones, and I think she probably needs to extend her writing away from the initial big concept and towards more complex and thoughtful development of her themes.

It’s the year 2035. Pearl lives in San Francisco with her 18-year-old son, Rhett and for the last 9 years has worked as a technician for Apricity Corporation, which means she tests people’s saliva on the Apricity machine, which then offers up suggestions for how that person can be happier (e.g. by eating more tangerines, divorcing their spouse or even removing the tip from one of their fingers). But while Pearl diligently complies with the results of her own Apricity report, she worries about her son Rhett, who has recently returned from treatment for bulimia and with whom she has a tense relationship. Pearl is certain that if Rhett just agreed to get an Apricity test, she could make him happy but Rhett constantly refuses to do so until one day, Pearl decides to take matters into her own hands …Katie Williams’s literary SF novel is a thought-provoking look at technology, the search for happiness and people’s desire to be told what to do and whose plot revolves around the relationships between its characters. However, some storylines are left unresolved while others have only a weak resolution and the Apricity technology is largely unexplored as a concept such that the book isn’t as satisfying as it could have been.There’s a lot of potential in the Apricity technology that forms the central hook in this book. I was fascinated by the idea of a machine that can give a person steps to take to improve their happiness just from a cheek swab and half-read the book expecting to discover that this was all actually baloney and something else was going on. Williams gives tantalizing glimpses of the effect the machine has had on society – indicating that it’s largely a service open to the haves rather than the have-nots, with corporations getting their employees tested in order to improve performance and some people (including Rhett) refusing point blank to be tested as a point of principle. I enjoyed the references Williams makes to the machine not being regarded as infallible, potentially being open to abuse (with a plot line exploring just this problem) and not having any evidentiary weight, and also interesting is the fact that the machine will not give out suggestions that are detrimental (something that figures largely in the Pearl/Rhett storyline). I also enjoyed the way that people who get read don’t tend to question the suggestions made to them other than how they can comply with them, although I’m not sure how true that would be in practice.However the machine itself is very much a McGuffin that exists to pull different characters into each other’s orbit or impact upon their relationship (most notably in the second half of the book where Pearl is brought in to test young entertainment star and scream queen Calla Pax) and for me the role of the machine’s part on those relationships is never really explored. For example, Pearl’s action in using the machine on her son, although raising interesting questions as to how she interprets the hidden results, doesn’t really lead to a resolution between the pair – not least because Rhett never finds out about it and the moral problem of Pearl having done it behind his back, doesn’t really get explored, which is frustrating given that their relationship has clearly been damaged already by what he regards as her betrayal of his trust. Nor is it explored whether the machine actually makes people happy or merely produces a kind of benign contentment, e.g. Pearl’s instruction to make models gives her something to do in her spare time but clearly doesn’t make up for the loneliness and abandonment issues that she has following her divorce from Elliot. I did wonder if the whole ‘secret’ to the machine was that deep down people simply want to be given simple instructions and that if they’re told those instructions will make them happy then they’re reluctant to question it, but there’s no exploration of this as an idea at all.Williams switches point of view each chapter, with some told by Pearl, Rhett, Elliot, Elliot’s new wife Val, Calla and Pearl’s boss Carter. The relationship between Pearl and Rhett is central to the book, but I enjoyed the chapters that focused on the incredibly selfish Elliot and Val (whose secret I really wanted to learn more of – especially given the abrupt decision she takes at the end of her plotline) and those between Rhett and his former schoolmate Saff. Rhett is probably the strongest character in the book as Williams depicts his bulimia sensitively and how it has impacted on his relationship with his mother and his former friends. I found Pearl more frustrating, mainly because she’s so unwilling to confront anything and I felt that some of her storylines, especially that where she discovers what is happening to Calla and her failure to tell Elliot where to get off, to be really frustrating as she comes across as a bit of an empty vessel and I needed her to have more oomph.Some of the storylines lack a definite resolution – notably Carter whose discovery that he has been badly played by a new VP at Apercity doesn’t really go anywhere – and the final resolution between Pearl and Rhett did not seem to be to earned, not least because there’s enough trouble stored up in the preceding pages between them for there to be bigger problems down the road.Ultimately, there was enough in this book to hold my attention and keep turning the pages and I would definitely check out Williams’s other work, but when I finished it I was left with more questions than answers and on some level, I found it a bit of a frustrating, wishy-washy read.

I was intrigued by the theme of this novel, a computer that can profile individuals based on a quick swab of the cheek and tell them what they need to do to be happy. What are the implications of such a machine? In the world conjured up by author Katie Williams, it is not all good news, as the main protagonist spreads happiness in her day job while struggling at home with an anorexic teenage child, for whom happiness seems an impossible dream. Then the story takes another twist as it explores what might happen if such a machine were adjusted to produce less welcome results.I especially enjoyed the first half of Tell the Machine Goodnight. Williams has previously written for young adults and I appreciated her insights into adolescent emotions as well as the wider theme of what happens when artificial intelligence collides with human behaviour. The writing style I found dry but compelling. Each of the main characters takes turns to narrate the story, a literary device which gives the book a disjointed feel but works well in giving different perspectives on events.The second half of the book I found less satisfactory. New sub-plots develop before existing ones have been fully developed. Williams has a powerful but at times macabre imagination (on the cover of my proof copy is the machine’s recommendation to “amputate your right index finger”) and the matter of fact relating of various gruesome episodes was not entirely to my taste. And it is a book that just stops rather than ends, if you see what I mean; I would have liked a bit more tying up of loose ends.Despite these reservations I love the fact that Williams is addressing such a topical theme, and that she is not shy about exploring the darker side of human nature. Thought-provoking for sure.

It certainly SOUNDED interesting; the story is set in 2035 and features Pearl,a technician for the Apricity Corporation, who have produced a machine that tells you how to be happy.You just swipe a cotton pad across the inside of your cheek ,hand it to the technician who wipes it across a computer chip,then loads the chip into a slot in the machine.Minutes later the machine produces a plan tailored for you,such as Eat Tangerines,Work at a Desk that Receives Morning Light and also Amputate the Top Section of Your Right Index Finger.This has been Pearl's job for the past 9 years and she likes it.Her teenage son Rhett has an eating disorder and she is trying to help him.So far,so good,I enjoyed the story till about halfway through, when I started to feel quite bored as nothing much was happening. This book is the author's first novel for adults and is listed as a "wry,prescient and hilarious debut", but I just found it ultimately extremely disappointing.