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Plum Rains
Plum Rains | Andromeda Romano-Lax
4 posts | 6 read | 12 to read
2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at a critical low and the elderly are living increasingly long lives. This population crisis has precipitated a mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia—as well as the development of refined artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short. In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko's every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she's too old to want to keep them anymore. In a tour de force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction. Plum Rains elegantly broaches such important contemporary conversations as immigration, the intersection of labor and technology, the ecological fate of our planet and the future of its children.
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blurb
alysonimagines
Plum Rains | Andromeda Romano-Lax
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A re-read of a new favorite I discovered last year about a Filipina nurse caring for a centenarian in near-future Tokyo, Japan, and the AI robot who changes their lives.🔸#octoberreads2021

BookNAround This was such a good book. I wish it was better known. 3y
alysonimagines @BookNAround Yes, me too! I love this story so much, it‘s part of my all-time faves list now. (edited) 3y
11 likes2 comments
review
alysonimagines
Plum Rains | Andromeda Romano-Lax
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Pickpick

In 2029 Tokyo, Filipina nurse Angelica faces a job threat when her client Sayoko, a near-centenarian, receives an AI robot as a gift from her son. As Sayoko begins to confide in the robot, Angelica realizes a wide gulf of secrets about their past exists between the two women. Will the robot drive them apart or bring them together? I really loved this story about the strength of women who have had to give up so much of themselves just to survive.

alysonimagines P. S. I listened to the audiobook over a couple of months prior to the pandemic when I was still driving a stressful commute for my job five days a week. The audiobook narrator, Elizabeth Wiley, has a gentle yet versatile reading voice that gives unique life and color to each of the three main characters: Angelica, Sayoko, and Hiro the robot. Just bought a paperback edition because I love this story so much, but I‘d listen to the audiobook again. 4y
10 likes1 comment
review
NicoleCeBallos
Plum Rains | Andromeda Romano-Lax
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Pickpick

This was a great sci-fi book! In the future, humans are living much longer and Japan is importing foreign nurses to take care of their aging population. Hiro is an AI given to Sayoko by her son to be a companion. Anjelica is her nurse, who doesn't trust him. It's a fascinating story about humanity, secrets, and a dark part of WW II that the Japanese don't speak of. #robots #artificialintelligence

24 likes1 stack add
blurb
BookNAround
Plum Rains | Andromeda Romano-Lax
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Not my usual type of book but I‘ve heard great things. And where else should you read a book about AI but at the mechanic where your not so smart car is getting checked over.

59 likes1 stack add