This is a story of many perspectives, which might feel a little overloaded for some readers, but I thought they all fit perfectly, and offer a comment as well on the fragmented existences we live online ... The book feels like an extended episode of Black Mirror, and certainly has that show’s taste for dark humor and high-concept philosophizing around our tech addiction, though what raises it above another clever-clever slab of science fiction is that its characters are complex and contradictory and real. For better or worse, you care about them. The mirror may be dark in places, but it shines with a more human light. It’s an entertaining read that draws more inventiveness from character development than it does from the fictional technology ... The irony for a book that could be seen to mock self-help culture is that it is, in itself, the kind of story that—in the subtlest of ways—can instruct us, and nourish us, and make us want to live and love a little better.
I loved Katie Williams's debut novel Tell the Machine Goodnight. So much that I read it twice. The first time was straight through — not driven by plot or thrumming action, but in a languid drift across 280-some pages, a feeling like being drunk on a raft in calm water. The second time I dipped in and out, 10 or 20 pages at a swallow. I might read it again when we're done here ... The novel is almost a series of interlinked short stories ... Taken separately, they are little short ditties about life in a future where unhappiness can be cured with a dog or clarinet lessons. Taken in small groups, they form movements. All together, they are a symphony.
Williams does an admirable job of weaving myriad characters’ stories together ... But the novel is at its best when it pushes the technology to the background and turns instead to the emotional mechanics of happiness. Williams is a deft observer of small human details, and in moments when she pinpoints these details, the story shines.
If there's any criticism of this novel, it's that the moments of technological world-building are so fleeting as to almost shock the reader when they appear in the text ... it's easy to forget the parameters that make this fictional world so special ... With its large heart, compelling cast of characters and frighteningly-not-far-from-reality technology, Tell the Machine Goodnight is a story that will compel you to keep reading, while also allowing you the space to meditate on the understanding that happiness looks different for everyone.
In this imaginative, engaging, emotionally resonant story, she reveals how the devices we depend on can both deprive us of our humanity and deliver us back to it. With its clever, compelling vision of the future, deeply human characters, and delightfully unpredictable story, this novel is itself a recipe for contentment.
...an especially well-turned representative ... Tell the Machine Goodnight is structured more like a set of linked stories than a novel, the better to explore the varieties of (anxious, none-too-happy) responses that Apricity provokes ... unsettling, but not surprising.
...a savvy take on technology’s potential and its moral failings ... heartbreaking stories about the intersection of technology, tragedy, and regret ... Williams never allows satire to overtake her story’s moral center or its profoundly generous and humanistic heart, resulting in a sharp and moving novel.
