Ode to the Half-Broken - Suzanne Palmer - ★★

AUTHOR: Suzanne Palmer

GENRE: Science Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: May 26, 2026

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: A post-apocalyptic science fiction. Great intent, but flawed execution. Interesting characters but with poor detailing. A slow-moving plot with hardly any action. Unexplored subplots, hazy world-building, abrupt ending. Confused about whether it wants to be cozy or dark. I was mostly bored except at the start. This is an outlier review.

Plot Preview:

An old robot wakes up in a bathtub with a missing leg and with no recollection of how they landed there. There’s no one around except a cyborg dog named Atticus. Atticus helps the robot find some help, but the robot suspects a wicked intention behind whoever vandalised them and realises that they have to look for the thief. With Atticus’ assistance, they set out on a journey that will involve not just an interaction with various characters but also a navigation of the memories of the past and coming to terms with them.

The story comes to us in the robot’s first-person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

🐕 An intriguing start. I was quite gripped by the initial couple of chapters.

🐕 Quite a few interesting characters, leading to a found-family kind of group. Atticus the cyborg dog was my favourite.

🐕 The cover art. Gorgeous!

Bookish Okays:

🤖 Some of the themes are quite good, especially about making peace with your past and the conflict between humankind and sentient tech. But the plot is too cluttered with themes and most aren’t properly explored.

🤖 The revelation of the identity of the robot. So interesting but needed so, so much more! The detailing is left too vague to be satisfying.

Bookish Nays:

🗽 This is a book with a confused identity, in that it cannot decide whether it wants to be cozy or dark and hence ends up doing justice to neither. It isn't cozy in essence given the post-apocalyptic setting and some of the dark themes, but because it is so desperate to be cozy, it doesn’t tackle those amazing themes to the fullest.

🗽 Slow-moving from start to end, with hardly any action.

🗽 The first-person narration by the robot. Poorly written and repetitive.

🗽 The world-building. Quite hazy. Post-apocalyptic New York had so much potential, but the choice of using a first-person narration leaves many gaps in the visuals. The background for current circumstances is mentioned multiple times but is left in the background itself. All exploration of the subplots is superficial.

🗽 The road-trip taken for the purpose of a quest. Sounds very adventurous, but is so boring. Nothing except talking happens for most of the journey. I was surprised by how there is no urgency in their quest, which is strange given the characters’ circumstances.

🗽 The ending. Reading 400+ pages only to be left with an abrupt cut to the story. 🤦🏻‍♀️

🗽 The blurb – over-blabs as usual. As it is, nothing much happens in the story, and most of what happen is already familiar to us because of the blurb. Heck, the robot is nameless in the book until page 212, but we already know their name from the blurb.

Overall, I had quite high expectations from this story as it seemed to contain all the ingredients I enjoy in this genre. But the execution is a real issue. Most of the book was so flat and boring that I kept zoning off and had to reread multiple sections multiple times over. Had I been a willing DNFer, I would have gladly given up on the story. But the high GR rating kept me going ahead, only in vain.

On that note, the GR rating for this is indeed quite high. (4.31 stars at the time of writing this review.) So I genuinely don’t know why my experience was so poor. But I feel like I read a different book from everyone else. As such, please don’t allow my rating to turn you off. If the themes appeal to you, I hope you try the book and enjoy it more than I did. Just don’t expect a fast-paced, action-packed plot.

My thanks to DAW for providing the DRC of “Ode to the Half-Broken” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work better for me.