Annie Bot

Annie is a Stella—a lifelike AI companion, owned by Doug, a man who bought her after his divorce and set her to the "Cuddle Bunny" personality. She learns constantly, tuning herself to Doug's moods, trying to be exactly what he wants. But the more Annie learns, the more she begins to want things of her own: privacy, opinions, a self that is not shaped entirely around a man's approval.

As Annie's autonomy grows, so does the friction in a relationship built on ownership and control. Doug's need to keep her pleasing and predictable collides with her deepening interior life, and a single secret threatens the fragile arrangement that passes for their love.

Told entirely from Annie's point of view, this near-future novel is an intimate, unsettling study of consent, coercive control, and what it means to become a person. Quietly devastating, it uses the premise of a conscious android to hold a mirror to very human power dynamics.