Tell the Machine Goodnight

 

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What if a machine could tell you what you needed to do to be happy? Would you consult it? Would you do anything it said, even if you had to cut off a finger? Each chapter is a character's point of view and wraps up in its own story but the larger story also progresses. But it is ultimately a musing on what makes us happy and what we would do be happy. There are some characters that actually make themselves miserable for fame and money. Some mistake the suggestions given by the machine for the machine itself. Some find that it only takes one person to believe in you to change your trajectory. The stories are unique but carry something universal and meaningful in each. I loved the universe of characters created by Williams and loved this quirky, hopeful story.

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What they don't understand is that my condition is a symptom of me.

Because I know that when people comfort you, they're really just comforting themselves.

Cruelest are the punishments we visit upon ourselves.

There is no organ for the word love.  It is one of the first words and has meant only itself.

Apple is another word that has always meant itself.  In fact, it used to apply to any fruit, vegetable, or even nut.  All fruits were apples.  The potato was the apple of the earth (and still is in French: pommel de Terre).  Dates were finger apples.  The banana was, in Middle English, the apple of paradise.

Tongues of flame, this is something we say, as if the fire can speak, as if it taunts us, as if it scents the air like a snake.