Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You know, putting aside the fact that this just won the Hugo for best short story in '24, if someone had told me I had to read this, and insisted, perhaps with a gun to my head, that I would love it, forcing me to read it, I probably would have come out of the experience in something much more than shock.

Not only would I turn on that person who had put a gun to my head, I'd probably give them a hug, thanking them for the abuse.

Why? Because the story was just that touching.

Being socially sequestered, a bit of a loser, myself, I found a lot of things in this short story just -- delightful. Did I want something like this? Yes. All parts of it, up to the point where the expiration date hit? Yes.

I mean, damn. This is the flip side of everything we've got. The UPside. And this is what we should be striving for. All of us.

Beautiful. Totally beautiful.

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