Culpability - Bruce Holsinger - ★★

AUTHOR: Bruce Holsinger

NARRATORS: Stacy Carolan and January LaVoy

GENRE: Contemporary Dystopian Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: July 8, 2025

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary drama about a family whose life changes after an accident. Interesting representation of technology (specifically AI) and its impact on real-life issues. Goes overboard on subplots and secrets. I expected to like it better given my antipathy towards excessive AI reliance, but the OTT drama and the annoying lead character were a turnoff. This is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

The Cassidy-Shaw’s self-driving minivan gets into an accident when seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, his father Noah is next to him working on his laptop, and his mother Lorelei (a renowned expert on AI ethics) and tween sisters Alice and Izzy are in the backseat busy with their own phones. The accident results in the deaths of the two people in the other car. Who is to blame for their deaths? The situation gets further complicated with the fact that the minivan was fully autonomous and that each family member has a secret connected to the accident. When Noah takes his family for a week-long recuperation to Chesapeake Bay, the moral complications of the accident and its emotional repercussions become too hard to ignore.

The story comes to us in Noah’s first-person perspective, with some interlude chapters containing excerpts from a book written by Lorelei and also an ongoing chat interaction.

We are all aware of the discussions on the ethical and moral implications of the use of AI in daily life. While AI can be beneficial in certain cases, it has also done a lot of harm in the last few years, partly due to the environmental damage created by its massive servers and partly due to its misuse by ignorant users and greedy corporations. Like it or not, AI is here to stay, and with every subsequent day, it embeds itself more into our lives. Many people equate AI to be ChatGPT, but that is only generative AI. Even prior to this, we’ve had AI-reliant devices such as virtual assistants on the likes of Alexa and Siri, self-driving cars, drones, chatbots, and more. This book tries to incorporate as many technologies as possible within its plot, trying to get us to see the benefits and harms of each. And therein lies a part of its downfall.

Given that there were five members in the Cassidy-Shaw family, plus a few more key characters in the book, there was enough material to create an intricate moral drama focussing on the AI systems used in self-driving cars. Instead, the plot lists every major usage of AI in regular life and assigns at least one of these to the arc of each character. This creates an unnecessarily cluttered and somewhat disjointed plot. The accident itself had more than enough legal and ethical complexity for an entire novel. Why add so much more? Even if everything is tied to the accident and its aftermath, the plot still feels too tangled.

This might have been okay if the characters were likeable or at least relatable. But every single one of them, including the kids, are annoying to varying degrees. The most irritating one is easily Noah, who has a major insecurity about his wife’s superior intelligence and success. Instead of handling it like a mature grown-up, he ends up a whiny man-child who can't even parent his kids with authority. Under normal circumstances, this would have made me side with Lorelei, but her behaviour was also tiresome. The girls Alice and Izzy can probably get away with some problematic attitude because of their younger age, but Charlie’s life choices didn’t allow me to sympathise with him either. Almost all the characters, including the secondary and minor ones, acted entitled. Not a surprise as almost all the main characters are from a privileged upper-class white family, thereby limiting the relatability further.

Unlikeable characters are still fine in fiction as long as they show some growth over the narrative. But most characters in this book remain the same throughout. Furthermore, all of them, even the kids, keep at least one major secret from the rest of the family. Some of these are revealed to the others at opportune moments in the plot; some aren’t revealed at all except to the readers. It’s really annoying when there are so many secrets circulating. I did like how some of the secrets involved guilt from the five characters, each of whom thought they were responsible for the accident.

It doesn’t help that Noah is the chosen narrator for this story. I get that his character was probably in the best position to see all the events from a third-party angle, but I sure wish his common sense and maturity were greater in quantity. His inner monologues are in the same tone throughout, and worse, his inferiority complex doesn’t motivate him to make better choices. Some of his thoughts (such as his almost-voyeuristic observations of how Charlie’s potential girlfriend applies suntan lotion on his muscular body) made him sound like a pervert. When he drove his daughters home drunk even though they were just recovering from one car accident, I lost all patience with him.

On the positive side, the plot raises valid questions about AI usage. It doesn’t take a side for or against AI, but highlights how the responsibility lies on human shoulders. The ethical dilemmas of a car accident involving autonomous vehicles are also explored well. The excerpts from Lorelei’s book are quite excellent and thought-provoking. Also, the chat interaction between two characters was quite creepy for me to read as a mother to teen girls.

The title is also perfect. Where does human culpability begin in AI-related situations? Can technology (or its creator) have culpability in case of accidents? Given that the culpability of all the main characters in the book is in question at some point or the other, there couldn’t have been a better title for such a story.

The book has several political inserts, with some names referenced. This might bother those who prefer to stay away from political content in fiction. I used to be in the same category, but these days, I am so fed up of certain empty-brained-yet-egotistic politicians that I enjoy seeing them roasted, even if it is in fiction.

I might have still rated the book higher had the ending been satisfactory. But it was so anti-climactic!

~~~~~ SPOILERS BELOW ~~~~~

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I expected better justice for all parties and probably some important learnings for Noah. Disappointed on both counts. I am most annoyed that stupid Noah ended up being the saviour of his double-PhD wife’s career dilemma. Give me a break! And give women some credit!

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~~~~~ END OF SPOILERS ~~~~~

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 10 hrs 21 min, is narrated mostly by Stacy Carolan, with the interludes voices by January LaVoy. Both the narrators do a great job. Carolan voices all characters with a proper distinction in their voices. While some of his emotions fell a little flat for Lorelei’s character, I appreciate that he didn’t sound weird for the female voices. LaVoy is as outstanding as always. She does such a fabulous job that I was convinced there were two female narrators for the chat interactions. As the plot is mostly linear and the interludes distinctly marked, the audiobook is a great option even for newbies listeners.

Overall, this novel could have gone better for me with limited topics, fewer secrets, and more relatable characters. I still like some issues it raised as they are quite relevant. If only the book had stuck to the core topic within adding unnecessary subplots! Attempting to be both a domestic drama and a clarion call on AI ethics just resulted in a half-baked storyline that goes wide rather than deep.

Still, mine is very much an outlier opinion. Several other readers have enjoyed its moral exploration of AI. Please do read those opinions before taking a call on this book.

I can recommend this only for the topic of AI ethics and nothing else. I wish we had more and better novels exploring this complex issue.