It’s not able to outsmart every human every time, and it doesn’t have the strongest grasp (yet) on the potential consequences of its actions. What’s neat is that although it’s electronically omnipotent, the AI still makes mistakes. It knows nothing about its origins, but once it has done a good deed, it feels so positive about good-deed-doing that it can’t resist doing more. In the annals of robot pals and friendly AIs, the AI in Catfishing on CatNet is particularly dear. To say too much about the sentient AI would be a spoiler, so I’ll do my best to be circumspect. Steph does have a love interest, but the primary relationship stakes in this story are about friendship: After a lifetime of mistrust and fear, she has to learn how to let friends into her life and trust them once she has them. Unusually for this era of YA fiction, Catfishing on CatNet doesn’t have a love triangle or even much romantic drama. The majority of the characters are casually queer, and while the book respects and acknowledges their queerness and its importance in their lives, it’s not a story about being queer.
Let me start by saying that I loved this book. It requires all the cleverness and kindness able to be mustered among Steph, her clowder, her high school friends, and the AI to save the day. When one of the AI’s efforts to assist lands Steph’s school on the national news, she and her mother are abruptly in danger from her scary, abusive father. She chalks it up to confusing coincidence, but the reality is that one of the members of her clowder is a benevolent AI who likes her and wants to help improve her life. But one day she complains to her clowder about a teacher bullying a classmate, Rachel (whom Steph has a crush on), and the next day, the teacher has left the school permanently.
On the run from a dangerous father, Steph has never lived in one place long enough to make real friends but her clowder (group chat) on CatNet supplies most of what she needs.
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