Review of Laura Duerr, “Unit Two Does Her Makeup”, Luna Station Quarterly 46 (2021): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
I didn’t expect a story of make-up, misogyny (okay, that isn’t fun, but the way it was casually ignored was), and a conscious navigation of the uncanny valley to end up being so empowering. It was an accomplished telling from the POV of an AI, who sometimes awkwardly, sometimes smoothly straddles the line between being herself and being more humanlike, and I’m considering reading it to my newly-discovered-make-up daughter. I think it’s got a message that she’d value hearing.
(Weirdly, though, this was the second story of this issue that had proofreading issues: Sometimes it’s Suzanne, sometimes Susana, and I think the one lone instance of “Maya” was meant to be Suzan(ne/a). Frustrating.)
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