This interesting sci-fi/fantasy takes a Robert Altman approach in connecting characters and wondering what they'd do to achieve or avoid happiness. Mild-mannered single mom Pearl works for Apricity, which owns and operates a machine that can determine one's happiness needs all via a simple swab of the cheek. Pearl is good at her job, but she's got a teenage son reveling in his own misery and battles with an eating disorder.

The characters all connect and each of their stories ultimately links with another. I already find myself wanting to read this one again.

I loved this book

Amazing, subtle, fascinating, and delightful without being twee in the least. I picked this up in the airport in Anchorage and finished it before I reached home again.

The ending felt really abrupt - there were several loose ends that I expected to be tied up that weren't. It was almost like it quit mid-sentence, even though there was a full stop at the end. I guess what made the ending so... sudden was that I was engaged and wanted to know what happened next the whole way through. So four stars for entertainment value in spite of the lack of resolution in the end.

Interesting, but was disappointed at the end. Why I was disappointed I can't quite put my finger on. It is worth reading if you can get your hands on it.

While I enjoyed reading the book I felt unsatisfied. There was the potential for more. The main ideas of the book were interesting but there were too many stories that didn’t get a chance to fully develop.

(3.5 stars)

Definitely falls under the “what a weird book” category that has been trending as of late. It’s uncertain who or what this books is about, or why the author chose to focus on the characters that she did. But it was highly entertaining and had plenty of twists along the way to a unique concept that I was never tempted to put it down. Recommend.

Tell the Machine Goodnight is a novel about several different people's lives in a future that relies on technology for happiness. Sort of sounds like the present, but there's more: A machine has been invented which can read a person's DNA, and then provide a few obscure directives that seem to increase a person's level of contentment. Through her characters, author Katie Williams examines the direction in which society is headed as we shift our focus from relations that rely solely on human interactions, to relations that are mediated, built, and broken based on mechanical recommendations.

So what happens when the folly of human intuition is replaced by a machine's objective edict? The answer, according to Williams, seems to be in the subtleties. And somehow, this is fitting. The fingers of technology creep into each corner of our lives slowly, quietly taking over processes that we have historically had to perform based on subjective reasoning.

Other reviewers have commented that Tell the Machine Goodnight is a novel without plot. Perhaps this is true to an extent, but I do believe that Williams gently builds towards a new understanding of tech's role in her characters' lives -- and therefore in readers' -- which is itself her purpose. Her writing is admirable, alighting the stories with poignance and insightful observations. I recommend this as a slow-paced, thought-provoking read.