Have I mentioned I LOVE Artificial Intelligence stories? Definitely my favourite sci-fi trope. Its something about exploring identity, humanity, society, and connection through something that is usually assumed to be…well… robotic, absent of emotion or humanity (to the extent that we understand the term). However, Klara and the Sun was nothing like any other AI story I’d read in that it was first person, from the perspective of Klara, and the AIs of this universe were just so unlike the others I’ve read.

In this world, Klara is an “AF”, an “artificial friend”, and essentially a consumer product in a world where so much of interaction is virtual that affluent families buy their kids AFs to have around. Or at least that was my impression. Since the book is from an AFs perspective, a lot of the details of society are up for interpretation. Klara has a very limited understanding of the world and therefore the reader has to fill in the blanks. It made for a VERY good book club book as many of us came out of the book with different interpretations of the society and the events of the book, based on how we filled in those blanks. 

Klara is assigned to be an AF to a young girl who appears to be chronically ill, but its not fully explained why (again, up to interpretation). She sets out help the girl get better by pleading to her own deity figure, as a robot that gets her energy from solar energy -- the sun. Klara is so motivated to help her human get better, going on explorations beyond any other AF we hear about, getting help from the girl’s father, friend, and making personal sacrifices along the way.

I definitely got Black Mirror vibes from some parts of this book (at least with my interpretations of things), and I think the same story from any other perspective would have been exceptionally dark. However, to experience it through the perspective of Klara and her child-like understanding of things helped keep the very dark realities of the world at bay, resulting in a beautiful, tender story of love.