I don't even know where to start with this review!

As soon as I saw this book it jumped out to me. I have never heard of a book like it and I knew I just needed to get my hands on it!! This book is about Rachel, who passes away, and has created iRachel - iRachel is a robot and is a gift to her husband and daughter. iRachel lives with Aidan and Chloe for a while.
First of all, I love well it wrote about dealing with grief. It was so accurate and something I found I can highly relate too and it was a comfort reading about it in this book, knowing that different grieving processes are okay and that people have different coping mechanisms.

I did not know what to expect when iRachel went to live with Aidan & Chloe, I did not know whether things would go horribly wrong or whether iRachel would help them both with the grievance. It was so fascinating that Rachel and her work partner Luke had built this robot to look and talk exactly like Rachel!

I loved how we gained different perspectives from each character. Having chapters from iRachel, Rachel, Aidan, Chloe and Sinead (Aidan's mum), it made the book more capturing as it was so interesting finding more about how they are dealing with iRachel!

I also liked how this book touched on Dementia too, Sinead suffered from dementia, which at first nobody really noticed but as the book went on it got worse and worse. It was wrote about in such a sensitive way, from the perspective of each character aswell!!

This book was just filled with so many different concepts/ideas - iRachel, death, grievance, dementia, friendships, loneliness - yet despite there being so many different aspects, none of it seemed forced and it all seemed to fit well together!!

I did however find some chapters quite unnecessary and not really required for the story!

Fab ending!

I would 100% recommend this read - one of my favourite reads!!!

The After Wife reminded me of Matt Haig's The Humans for its juxtaposition of a non-human in the guise of a human. In The Humans it's difficult for the other characters to tell the difference between the human and the non-human because the non-human appears to be human: he looks exactly like the Professor he's killed and whose body he now inhabits. Even his wife doesn't suspect. But he's come to kill her too, to protect the brilliant mathematical discovery the Professor made which the non-human's race, the Vonnadorians, believe the human race is too backward to be entrusted with. Needless to say things don't go according to plan. And the non-human falls in love.

In The After Wife Aidan's beloved wife Rachel dies. But she was a brilliant scientist who leaves behind a gift for her husband and their daughter Chloe. A gift which will help them come to terms with the loss of their wife and mother. A gift called iRachel. Who is a robot. But a very very advanced robot who looks just like Rachel. Along with Aidan and Chloe, iRachel narrates sections of the novel and when at the end she, as she puts it, feels

A click inside. I can only describe it as an unlocking.

She 'remembers' much and this prompts a series of thoughtful explorations (all within the story) of the differences between human and non-human and, in iRachel's acknowledgement that she will never be able to love, I found a sad human echo and a reminder about what it is to be human and so to love. And how lucky we are that we can love even though, inevitably, those we love will one day die.

iRachel returns memories and love to the real Rachel's family in sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, often in her robot-technical language ways but always ways that, in the end, heal. It's a lovely idea that got me thinking and laughing and recognising, not for the first time, that without love we really are only mechanical beings.

Rachel and Aidan have been married for 18 years, are very much in love and have a 15 year old daughter Chloe. Life is busy - Rachel is a brilliant high-flying scientist while Aidan works for a recruitment consultancy. When Rachel dies suddenly, Aidan and Chloe are left devastated. But Rachel has a surprise for them - she and her colleague Luke at Telos Robotics has created a robot in the exact image of Rachel, with very sophisticated AI who has all Rachel's memories and has called it iRachel.
I loved this book - it is told from multiple viewpoints which I like. It is a story of life, death, grief and recovery. I don't want to give too much of the plot away by talking about it in detail here but it is a beautiful book which moved me to tears with it's depiction of grief. I enjoyed the technical descriptions of the AI technology - not too difficult to understand but not dumbed down either. Both heart-breaking and heart-warming, this is an unusual mix of science fiction and chick lit which I really enjoyed.
Thank you to Trapeze Books for my copy for the 12 Days of Christmas blog tour I am taking part in.

Really enjoyed The After Wife and seeing the story through a variety of perspectives. I have no idea how close we are to humanoid androids of the type iRachel represents, but I found it interesting to see how she learned and grew during the experiment as well as how the human subjects she was interacting with grew and changed through knowing her. There were poignant moments, typically from iRachel’s perspective, but I don’t think it is as amazing as The Time Traveler’s Wife, which the publisher compared it to. While I found my head nodding and my finger dog eating certain passages, it didn’t affect me emotionally as much as that other novel, even when things changed considerably between the main characters. That said, I do recommend the novel.

Thank you to the publisher Trapeze for the copy of this book to review. This has not influenced my rating.

This was originally posted to This Is My Bookshelf

I was thrilled to get the chance to read this after reading What She Left by Rosie Fiore last year (Cass Hunter is a pseudonym). Add a hint of Sci Fi and a comparison to The Time Traveller’s Wife and I’m all in.

If you’re nervous about science fiction, don’t let that put you off this novel. The focus is very much on the people and the relationships. About how someone’s history and memories shapes who they are.

I adored the way this what written, with the chapters from different perspectives (including the iRachel) linking together seamlessly.

The ending could have given us a little more, it was a bit too sudden for my taste. But that doesn’t prevent me from highly recommending this if you’re interested in a story which will suck you right in and give you all the emotions.