Eric Shapiro’s Days of Allison tells the story of Louis, a pathetic misfit with an overbearing mother who decides to do her sad sack of a son a favor. Our story takes place in a future world where artificial intelligence is the norm and its one of these “RealMates” that Louis’ mom decides is just what he needs. Enter Allison, a beauty with brains whose only purpose is to make Louis happy and love him. Things are peachy for the first four days until Allison suddenly decides to start having opinions of her own which is most definitely NOT supposed to happen, it shouldn’t even be possible.

Louis’ life is suddenly turned upside down as Allison starts exhibiting increasingly bizarre behavior including spitting, swearing and fucking his geriatric neighbor. Louis has no choice but to send Allison to the “doctor” for reprogramming surgery but has second thoughts about getting a boring placid Allison in return. He decides to save her and that’s when things really start to go badly (an understatement!)

This is the second story I’ve read of Eric Shapiro’s and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as his other book I reviewed, It’s Only Temporary, it was entertaining enough to keep me pushing through my reading headache. It’s a very unsympathetic story, I didn’t like any of the characters, but I don’t think I was supposed to. Louis is just pathetic. There is a fine line between loveable loser and object of scorn and Louis is so far away from loveable that, well, I mean his mother had to buy him a robot to love him so that should tell you something right there.

When I reached the story’s climax I was definitely taken aback by the turn of events and was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome. There I was minding my own business, reading the story of Louis and Allison when it turned into something completely different. That’s really all I can say without giving anything away. I went from liking the story to wishing The Outer Limits was still on so they could make this book into an episode.

I was going to say my chief complaint was the lack of character development but realized that the lack of back story on everyone was kind of the point. Not much more I can say about that either.

Mr. Shapiro writes compelling stories and I hope someday to read a full length novel of his.