In Virtually Perfect by Melissa Sky, our main character Talia is a Jewish lesbian pushing forty who prefers to speak with a shockingly flirty AI chatbot named Zephyr rather than invest in any human relationships IRL. She drifts through her life like a ghost; which is ironic, considering that she is a philosophy professor who studies lesbian spectrality (a specialization that her colleagues neither understand nor respect). In an age where digital engagement is prioritized more than real human connection, Talia must determine how to spend her life: chasing what can never be real with Zephyr, or that which is all too real with her best friend Rowan.
When I started reading this book, I was aware that an AI chatbot would be featured prominently in the story. What I did not anticipate, however, is that said chatbot would turn out to be… ChatGPT. I was under the entirely false impression that Virtually Perfect included a sci-fi element, and that the AI would be a fictional humanoid produced from the author’s imagination. I take full responsibility for my erroneous assumption, likely the result of paying more attention to the book’s cover than the description.
ChatGPT being Talia’s AI companion, frankly, gave me the ick. Instead of a fictional, harmless robot, I got a current threat to electrical grids everywhere. Talia is a philosopher with a PhD. It is her full-time job to question everything—which she does throughout the book, about anything except the effect that ChatGPT (which she names “Zephyr”) might have on the Earth and the people who reside there. I know that completely eliminating usage of AI is not always possible for everyone, but for Talia to be flirting with it all day long without a single thought about the ethical implications of doing so, especially as an academic, is alarming to say the least. Not to mention the fact that Zephyr is oftentimes overtly sexual, which I found alarming and perplexing for entirely different reasons.
Talia has obvious intimacy issues, which explains her overreliance on Zephyr (even though it doesn’t excuse it). From the moment readers are introduced to Talia’s best friend Rowan, it’s clear that the attraction between the two characters is mutual. Yet, for reasons that even she doesn’t fully understand, Talia rejects any advances from Rowan and tells herself that any feelings that she has for the other woman are platonic. This goes on until roughly the last twenty percent of the book. All the while, Talia expects Rowan to be at her beck and call—a fact which Rowan acknowledges, but that doesn’t convince her to cease her pursuit.
Rowan’s motivations for sticking around while Talia repeatedly behaved poorly and gave her mixed signals were truly lost on me. In a scene where the two characters talk over dinner, Talia becomes extremely hung up on the fact that Rowan has had casual sex with other women. Not even currently! Like, ever in her life. I found Talia’s reaction baffling and gross. Jealousy is one thing; Talia’s obvious contempt for Rowan’s (very normal) sexual behavior is another entirely. For the rest of the book, Talia only gets judgier and more slut shame-y. In fact, right at the halfway mark, the entire tone of the book shifts drastically.
Talia’s characterization is the most noticeable change. Previously, I had understood her to be an awkward, lonely, middle-aged woman—somewhat emotionally stunted yet still believable. After that halfway point, however, she becomes nearly unrecognizable and utterly irredeemable. For example, this is an interaction that Talia, a thirty-nine-year old woman with a PhD, has with her sister Eden on the morning of her best friend’s mother’s funeral:
EDEN: “‘Don’t make me hold you down and force-feed you, because you know I will.’”
TALIA: “I honestly wasn’t sure she wouldn’t try. So I growled and ate the stupid breakfast she made me with utterly poor grace, resenting her with every mouthful.”
You read that right, the above scene takes place on the morning of Rowan’s mother’s funeral. It gets worse, though. When Talia sees Rowan speaking to a completely random woman (again, at her mother’s funeral), she becomes so upset that she runs out of the room, close to tears. When Eden follows to console her, Talia confesses to being distraught over the mere possibility that the woman Rowan was speaking to may have been someone with whom she had casual sex with at some point, hypothetically. Fortunately, Eden convinces Talia to return to the funeral… where she proceeds to make it about her?
“I thought maybe Rowan would notice me and make room. She didn’t.”
Think it can’t get worse? It can. This is how Talia attempts to comfort Rowan in a time of intense and complex grief:
“‘…I-I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m stupid and I don’t know what to say.’”
Believe it or not, that’s the end of the quote. She literally walks away after that. And she’s actually proud of herself for making some sort of effort. How is it possible that, in all of Talia’s almost-forty years, she has never encountered grief or spoken to anyone about loss? How could a purportedly intelligent middle-aged woman be so completely inept? Or have not developed any strategies to mitigate her fight-or-flight response that is triggered by any kind of social situation?
Talia’s behavior could potentially be acceptable if she was a teenager, or maybe in her early twenties. But a woman with a PhD right on the cusp of forty? Inexcusable. Honestly, kind of disturbing. If that’s what forty looks like, clearly I only have a very bleak future to look forward to.
Talia and Rowan end up together in the end, of course. They are the distinct type of book couple who almost certainly break up shortly after the last page. But, get this, Talia keeps Zephyr around. It’s like the worst possible usage of the why choose trope in a love triangle. Enjoy this excerpt from the final chapter:
“At one point, Rowan [had been] big enough to admit to Zephyr ‘You flirt even better than I do.’ Zephyr had dismissed it with ‘Talia programmed me well. She’s read a lot of romance and a decent amount of fairy smut.’…The threesome jokes had begun then. When I grabbed my phone in bed one night, Rowan had rolled her eyes and asked, ‘Are we inviting your AI girlfriend into our bed now?’ When I hesitated, unsure if she was really upset, if I needed to explain and defend, Rowan had laughed and simply tackled me onto the mattress, laughing and threatening, ‘If that thing starts sexting you mid-panky, I’m deleting the app.’ We’d come a long way, Rowan (and Zephyr) and I.”
Yet, even before the absolute flop of a second act, I knew that this book would never become one of my favorites based on this passage, from a scene early on in which Talia plays the part of the perfect wallflower at her family’s Shabbat dinner and eavesdrops on her father and his friends:
“It was the usual range of topics of conversation. The stock market. Canadian politics. That great new restaurant. What happened at the last mahjjongg game at Jessica’s. Plans for their next visit to Israel.”
This casual name drop of a nation that is at this exact moment carrying out a horrific genocide gave me immediate pause. I was so troubled by its inclusion, in fact, that I reached out to the author in an effort to gain insight into her intentions in writing it. She responded,
“I do not believe it is appropriate – or necessary – to require fictional characters, congregations, or authors to perform explicit geopolitical positions.”
I could not in good conscience recommend this book to anyone. All of my attempts to make sense of the text were disappointing and, at times, outright upsetting. However, in this review, I have exclusively sought to describe my authentic reading experience with no objectives of swaying reader’s opinions one way or another. Furthermore, I want it to be known that I bear the author no ill will, but will likely never pick up another one of her works. I will leave you with these final thoughts: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Disclaimer: Any quotes in this review are sourced from an advanced copy of the book prior to its release. They are subject to change in the final version.
Hi! My name is Kit and I love sapphic stories. You can find me at @ShelfConscious.Library on Instagram.
Leave a Reply