What makes us human? 
 2014, the book's publication date, was perhaps a little too late to throw this question. I am positive that all sorts of writers in literature have already dragged this up for debate for more than a thousand times than anyone is willing to listen to. Tim Floreen, however, addresses this exhausted question in his YA techno-thriller Willful Machines to proffer a new answer that goes against the one in which our long dead philosophers have had us believe. Through a story that revolves around the life of a young man in a near-future America, Floreen invites us to a dreadful acceptance which states that "free will is an illusion" only. 
 In one of my psychology classes, we had the nature and nurture approaches in the study of human behavior. The nature approach explains a person's behavior through his/her biological pre-wiring; e.g., a baby sucks his/her thumb because his/her genes tell him/her to do so--sucking reflex. The nurture approach explains a person's behavior through his/her environmental stimulation; e.g., Melissa (not a character in this novel) defends animal rights for many reasons, but for the sake of this example, let's just say her parents raised her to do so--which argues that although she could have grown to be an adult who defends animal rights, we can't deny that a certain if not large percentage of this probability was caused by her parents. 
 These approaches contradict each other, but they share one thing in common: our behaviors, despite our intensive rebuttal, are not our own doings; we owe them to our body and our society. It further solidifies Floreen's argument that free will, freedom, choice, volition, liberty--or whatever fancy word we want to use to call that non-existent entity--are pretty much figments of our imaginations. From our very birth we cry, we squirm, we seek for our mother's breast because that's what our brains tell us to do when we're hungry; and as we grow we learn to speak, to count, to read because we have people and things to encourage us to do so. 
 Willful Machines is not exactly impressive in the prose department. There are times when the lines read like an entry from a melodramatic Twilight fan's diary. It also embodies the usual setting for YA stories: a high school full of bullies. And the protagonist isn't a strong character either. I've known many versions of "shy and bullied yet good-looking and smart" characters across literature. Lee Fisher isn't a refreshing hero but a tired, Gary-Stu-like concept of what a protagonist should be. Despite all of these letdowns I still think Willful Machines is a horric novel--so much that I want a sequel. I am aware that nothing suggests that Floreen is going to write one, but fans of To Kill a Mockingbird had long since given up on the prospect of a sequel--hell, some even died waiting for it to happen--then fifty-odd years later Harper Lee published Go Set a Watchman. So what the hell, right? I'll just sit right here and wait patiently for that sequel.