Autonomous

by Andy Marino

Overview

William Mackler is about to go on the road trip of a lifetime. After winning a contest—and nearly dying in the process—he becomes the proud owner of Autonomous, a driverless car that knows where you want to go before you do. #Worthit! To sweeten the deal he gets to pick three friends to go with him on a cross-country trip. For William, a reckless adrenaline junkie, this is the perfect last hurrah before he and his friends go their separate ways after graduation. But Autonomous is more than just a car without a steering wheel. It's capable of downloading all of the passengers’ digital history—from the good, to the bad, to the humiliating. The information is customized into an itinerary that will expose a few well-kept secrets, but it will also force William to face some inner demons of his own. Think you know Autonomous? The real question is, how much does Autonomous know about you?

This funny, tense, action-packed thriller combines topical social-media-privacy stakes with jaw-dropping high-tech action for a road trip saga like no other.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484773901
Publisher:	Freeform
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Andy Marino was born and raised in upstate New York, and currently lives in New York City with his wife and two cats. He's also the author of Unison Spark, Uncrashable Dakota, and The Door. You can visit him at andy-marino.com or on Twitter @Andy_Marino.

Editorial Reviews

01/29/2018
Recent high school graduate William Mackler has one goal: to win Autonomous (a self-driving, fully-automated luxury vehicle worth millions) and take his three best friends on the road trip of a lifetime to Moonshadow, a Burning Man–like festival in Arizona. He wins the contest, but William and his friends Melissa, Christina, and Daniel are all hiding things, secrets that reveal themselves as the car, dubbed Otto, becomes more and more independent. In a fast-paced, tech-saturated, and thoroughly hashtagged road trip story, Marino (Uncrashable Dakota) looks at the potentially insidious side of artificial intelligence and highlights how friendships change as people grow up. He does an excellent job of focusing on what makes William and his friends human—they are imperfect, and no single rule is ever set in stone (“We taught how to be a dick just by being ourselves,” William realizes as the trip goes haywire). Otto can’t quite wrap its processing unit around these facts—the nuances of what makes humans human aren’t imitable, even if Otto learns to tell a good joke or two. Ages 14–up. Agent: Elana Roth Parker, Laura Dail Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

* "A high-tech, twisted Breakfast Club for the social media age."—, starred review

"Readers will instantly connect or cringe (or both) as the characters' digitally constructed selves collide with the ugly realities of who they are off-screen... This book will have readers questioning just how much of themselves hey can entrust to the inter-webs, and just what the possibilities are when technology becomes autonomous."—BCCB

"In a fast-paced, tech-saturated, and thoroughly hashtagged road trip story, Marino... looks at the potentially insidious side of artificial intelligence and highlights how friendships change as people grow up."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

11/01/2017
Gr 10 Up—Autonomous, a luxurious self-driving car, is the new craze of the automobile industry and one of the firsts of its kind. This car will learn everything about the owner, from their dreams to their darkest secrets before they can buckle their seat belt. Autonomous will take them exactly where they want to go, or where it thinks they should go. William Mackler, a senior graduating high school, is the lucky winner of the Driverless Derby. After spending countless hours standing with his hand glued to Autonomous, William wins the "all-expense-paid cross-country road trip" and he can take three of his friends before they all part ways. Set in current time, this work is written using the trends and social media of today, making it easy to understand through the dialogue of the characters. There is strong language implemented throughout, sex and drugs used as coping mechanisms, as well as mentions of suicide. Four kids and a driverless car are off to work out some deep issues and confront their secrets, so be prepared for the ride. Autonomous truly acts independently of its owner; the car is in control and takes William on the thrill ride of his life. VERDICT A unique addition to any science fiction collection.—Gilly Yildiz, Eisenhower Public Library, Harwood Heights, IL

School Library Journal

★ 2017-09-26
A self-driving car plugged into its teenage passengers' electronic footprints takes them on a road trip based on what it thinks they want.Reckless William's disregard for his own safety helps him win a prototype luxury car, the Driverless Autonomous, and an all-expenses-paid road trip for him and three friends the summer before college. His companions are neighbor and friend Christina, best friend Daniel, and Daniel's girlfriend, Melissa—or, in team-role terms, tech genius Christina (a dark-web denizen and hacker), muscle Daniel (headed to play basketball at Princeton), and fixer Melissa (a gorgeous girl whose passion and ambition are overlooked because they're directed toward fashion). William is the wild card, and Otto the car is the brains. But each vividly drawn teen's mature, serious secrets can draw them into conflict with one another—and no secret is safe from Otto's electronic surveillance. While they make unpleasant discoveries about themselves and one another, Otto—difficult to control from the get-go—learns from them, developing a personality based on their input, reflecting the flaws of the characters and of humanity in general. The road trip is punctuated by drinking games, (consensual, responsible, off-page) sex, laser tag at an abandoned asylum, physical threats, car chases, and more, and along the way they grapple with questions of whom to trust. Aside from biracial (Guatemalan and white) Christina, the characters seem to be white.A high-tech, twisted Breakfast Club for the social media age. (Science fiction. 15-adult)

Kirkus Reviews

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