Maria Llovet

Our FMC Clara is a dedicated fashion stylist looking for a true steamy romance, ones that we read in romance novels. After her boyfriend fails to commit or show his true passions for her she turns to a new app based dating service, not like ones we’ve had before. This dating service offering lifelike android partners, ones you can customize not only looks put personality and desires. What begins as a free trial, turns in to something more.

However once she tries out her real romantic fantasy, it becomes more than she signed up for.

I was excited for the overall premise of this story, It had such promise and i was eager to see where the story would lead. We’ve all had that perfect book boyfriend we would love to have, and this is the perfect example of “be careful what you ask for.”

Overall the story fell short for me, The pacing was a tad off and I felt like I was missing chunks of information . Additionally, I felt like there was a few unneeded parts as well, I don’t think the rape scene was needed, more so when its supposed to be her dream partner. It just felt overall off for me. Maria Llovet does a great job of showing what happens when we let to much AI in to our lives, very much in line with black mirror vibes. I have read Crave in the past and I think if these were combined in to the same story where Crave is part one leading to Artificial it would blend really well together. However on its own I feel like Artificial was really rushed and it could have had more depth to it.

Thank you NetGalley and Image Comics for the digital ARC for review