I hate giving books stars. I hate trying to write reviews. I started doing these things for me, I wanted to put my thoughts down about a book I finished because within a few months I would forget everything outside of a vague feeling of liking it or not. What I started doing is writing these reviews like I was actually trying to give my recommendation to people. I know on occasion someone will stop by and read one of my reviews, but dammit, it's screwed up my ability to actually write what I think. 
 So, here at least, are my actual thoughts on this book. 
 1) I found myself confused on many occasion about what the hell was supposed to be happening in the story, action-wise. When I read something that seems incongrous to me, I tend to think that I'm reading it wrong, or that I wasn't paying attention, and I'll reread a passage a few times until I feel I get it. In this case, it was happening way to often, at some point I decided that the author was giving me passages that were written confusingly - maybe on purpose. It was more like, crazy things happen that make no sense, then the next chapter or scene will explain what actually happened so that previous section makes sense. That sort of thing was done repeatedly throughout the book. I'm not sure if I like that manner of storytelling. 
 2) I really, really, enjoyed the thought experiment this book was exploring. When a machine is given sentience, but it's programmed with failsafes to make sure it behaves, it can lead to unintended consequences. 
 3) It is full of very clever world building. I was fascinated by the social aspects of Amy's world. What's it mean when you've got a whole class of sentient beings that are programmed to serve and protect humans? How can something have free will if they are constrained by programming that does not allow for exceptions? 
 I did give it 4 stars... really it would probably be 3 1/2, but I've got to make a choice here, and I decided that I gave it a nudge up because it was a great science fiction concept that was explored pretty well, even if I did struggle a bit with how the narrative was told.