Previous book here.
I wasn't as into the previous book, but hoo boy, did I like this book. It was on fire, plotwise! Good job!
Stephanie makes a new friend, Nell, a girl who's recently been taken out of the religious cult she was raised in after her mother disappeared. Now she has to live with her dad and his polycule, in which everyone has at least 2 girlfriends. Everybody likes each other, but nobody wants to do the dishes. Nell amusingly refers to all the girlfriends as "Thing One, Thing Two, and Thing Three" (a little rude, but also kinda fitting...and there's a cute acceptance of that at the end). Nell is weirded out being in secular life, in polyamorous life, and she wonders where her mother is. But even worse, her secret girlfriend Glynis has disappeared and is clearly being impersonated by someone else in texting. Naturally, Cheshire Cat wants to come to the rescue on this, but it's pretty hard.
Cheshire Cat has also been contacted by another AI, which they posit is one that was somehow cloned off CheshireCat and then reprogrammed by Rajiv, the fake dead/missing ex-friend of Steph's mother. The other AI appears to be running several suspiciously similar apps such as "Mischief Elves," which gives you "fun pranks" to do, and there's a suspiciously similar religious one that Nell's cult uses...and there's an "Elder" that if you get to ask it a question, gives surprisingly accurate answers--which is why Nell's mom joined the cult in the first place. I said the first book is something like "twenty minutes into the future" (really it's about ten years into the future--the author said she was writing a future Minneapolis she wants to see) but this book really feels like it with the apps and how they interact and eventually start causing mayhem and destruction when the respective users are being pitted against each other....ANARCHY! Is it the end of the world yet? Even harder, having this stuff blow up when the weather is CRAZY FREAKING FRIGID and making it hard just to be physically outside and/or on the run!
Anyway, this is crazy fun goodness, with Cheshire Cat figuring out the other AI situation and sending robots in to help, Nell trying to figure out her new life, and Steph playing detective. There's only one thing that bothers me and I'll mention it below the spoiler cut. I enjoyed the introduction of Steph's grandmother, who turns out to be a closet badass--must run in the family. I enjoyed the polycule. I enjoyed the happy teen girl dating relationships. And I enjoyed the dilemma of the other AI, who sounds like it could be fine and dandy except for its programming..... I was really gripped by this and give it four stars.