Culpability

Seventeen year old Charlie is driving the family to his lacrosse championship. Charlie is tall, handsome and a talented athlete that will play at UNC in the fall. The family’s autonomous minivan is involved in a horrific accident when Charlie veers slightly as an oncoming car begins to cross the line. His father Noah, a lawyer, is sitting in the front passenger seat working on his laptop and his two teenage sisters are in the back with the mom, Lorelei. The passengers in the oncoming car are killed and while the Cassidy-Shaw family recuperates physically they are faced with an impossible moral dilemma that is slowly tearing them apart. Noah and Lorelei decide to end the summer with a trip, and it is there besides the sparkling lake that secrets reveal themselves and each of them must be accounted for. Was Charlie “driving” if the car is autonomous? Can you be on your phone, lap top, otherwise engaged if you are sitting in the “driver’s seat”? Would the AI technology have saved them at the last second if he didn’t grab the wheel? As we adapt to our new world of AI technology and realize that our human instincts cannot be ignored, who is at fault? There is a lot to unpack here and it’s almost too much family drama at once to wrap my head around. Overall, this book is a well written page turner and a great summer read! ⭐⭐⭐⭐