🤷🏻‍♀️Who is responsible for the accident? The automated car? The person who yelled a warning? The passengers absorbed in work? The person behind the wheel? - and in life, when we keep secrets, or withhold facts to avoid confrontation - who are we really protecting?

💫Culpability pulls you into this family drama and asks all this and more. This book will have you examining some of the choices we make in life - and also exploring the bigger questions - who takes responsibility when a life is lost? And - how are the tangled webs of AI changing relationship dynamics?

📕 This read grabbed me from the start and wouldn’t let go. I’m still thinking of the questions this book raises - to which there is no clear answer. Not every character is likable - their flaws are on display and anchor into the plot of this story. This is not a lighthearted read! Recommended for those who like to explore the tangled webs of family systems and what makes them tick, and the clogs in the wheel that can make them unravel.

📣 It’s easy to see why this book was chosen as an Oprah Bookclub pick for this month! Congratulations @bruceholsingerauthor !

🙏Thank you to NetGalley, Spiegel & Grau, and author Bruce Holsinger for an advanced copy of this e-book.

➡️Don’t miss the @oprahpodcast episode about this book!

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger is a very interesting combination of current technology (Artificial Intelligence) and timeless concepts such as grief, morality, family dynamics, marriage, and the privileges of the ultra-rich. The author cleverly includes excerpts from a position paper on AI to add facts and philosophical points.

A snapshot: a family of five is driving to a sports event when the unthinkable happens - there's a horrible crash and people die. This occurs early and the rest of the novel unspools from that event.

This would be an excellent book club book as it includes many discussable topics. I'm not sure how the plot will endure as tech rapidly advances, but it will be an interesting time capsule if nothing else.

I'll be thinking about Culpability and its implications for quite some time. Thank you to Spiegel & Grau for sharing a review copy with me.

Culpability by excellent novelist deals with complex concepts currently at play in society. In this instance, a family is out driving their AI vehicle when one of the family members disengages the AI to prevent an accident. Unfortunately, two people are killed, and an entire debate arises from the questions of artificial intelligence versus traditional driving and whether, indeed, artificial intelligence is beneficial. While Capability is not a typical mystery, it still contains the elements that make it an engaging book that should be read. Responsibility and culpability may be synonyms for each other, that is, for the reader to decide. In this book, we are privileged to listen in as one family member, the father, contemplates and cogitates over fault, responsibility, and the central question of AI and its inherent value to society. Culpability is a book anybody who has pondered the question of artificial intelligence, and its utility and/or its intrinsic values to individuals and society, should read.

I was captivated by the exploration of this family's inner dynamics. Holsinger skillfully delves into the complexities of loving our family while pursuing our individual passions. Although I've tried to avoid dwelling on AI, as it feels inevitable, I found value in examining it more thoroughly through this fictional narrative.

This all too real, yet fictional work explores the important question- if we create AI, are we responsible for the downfall of these mechanisms when they don’t work? Are we too reliant on the technology created by man to the point where we deny culpability of our own actions?

The Shaw family of 5 explores the very real consequences of their AI guided SUV disconnecting from auto-drive on a trip where their eldest son Charlie is caught texting and “driving.” But if everyone else in the car was also distracted, who is really at fault? While we explore the family dynamic thoroughly in this book, we also get a closer look at the applications of these complex algorithms that are not too far-fetched in real life today.

I appreciated the technical explanations and ethics discussions of this book, while also yearning for more legal aspects of AI. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

A car accident that kills an elderly couple begins this family drama that centers around the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. This is going to be a popular book with lots to discuss. Older teens should like this as well.

I finished this with complicated feelings—mostly on purpose, I think. Culpability is smart, timely, and full of sharp commentary, but it’s also slippery in ways that kept me both intrigued and frustrated. Most of the story unfolds through Noah’s perspective, and to be honest, I never fully warmed to him. His version of self-awareness often felt like a performance—like he wanted credit for noticing his own blind spots without actually changing much. That said, I think that was part of the point. He’s the “scaffolding,” as he calls himself—forever holding up the brilliance of others, but rarely taking a hard look at the power and privilege that gave him that role in the first place.

There’s so much here about parenting, marriage, class, race, technology, and responsibility. Some of the most gripping scenes—especially between Noah and Detective Morrissey—cut through all the rationalizations and force a real reckoning. The final stretch of the book is tense and emotionally charged, and I appreciated how Holsinger doesn’t offer easy answers.

This would be a phenomenal book club pick. It’s the kind of novel that makes you want to talk back to the characters and hash things out with a friend over coffee. Even when I didn’t love being inside Noah’s head, I never stopped thinking. And honestly, that might be the most generous thing I can say about a book.

Thank you to Spiegel & Grau for the gifted ebook and audiobook.

A thought-provoking and relevant piece of fiction about AI, and a stirring family drama dealing with the aftermath of tragedy.

There were a few moments the pacing felt off - dragging too much one way or speeding through another section - but overall this was a good read. The characters were brilliantly done and the implications behind AI in daily life smartly woven into the plot.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Wow! Not only was this a page-turner, but it really made me think. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and have been recommending it to all of my friends.

“Even as you read these books words, there are AI systems at work all around you, with profound bearing on the disposition of your food, your money, your shelter, your safety. They manage investment portfolios, coordinate global supply chains, and keep networks secure. They direct air traffic, drive trucks and cars, detect fraud, and optimize irrigation schedules.
Increasingly, they fight wars.
And there is almost no one teaching them how to be good.”

Have I gotten your attention? This book will blow your mind with passages like this over and over again.

I don’t want to spoil any of this story for you, so I’m going to be intentionally vague here. This is a story about artificial intelligence and morals and lies and responsibility and gray areas and family dynamics and the power of money. There are NDAs and emergency rooms and assumptions and so many lies.

There are so many ways that this book will make you think.

“When humans do something wrong, they generally face consequences. Even when our wrongdoing goes undetected by another—a parent, a spouse, an institution, law enforcement—we tend to experience guilt, shame, or regret. Only a psychopath lives free of remorse.
Algorithms face no such consequences for their misbehavior, either societal or emotional. Punishment, guilt, culpability are alien to them. There are no moral qualms in an algorithm.
Yet without acknowledgement of wrongdoing, how can there be regret? Without self-consciousness of guilt, how can there be remorse?
And without regret and remorse, how can there be moral growth?”

This book challenged me and will stick with me in so many ways. Although technical at times, the story is so good and these characters all drew me in for different reasons.

How do you use AI in your life?

In this well-paced domestic drama, the Cassidy-Shaw family is in their self-driving SensTrek minivan on their way to attend son Charlie’s final event of his youth lacrosse career. 17 year-old Charlie is behind the wheel, his father, Noah, who narrates the tale, is in the passenger seat, and his mother, Lorelei, and two sisters, Alice, 13, and Izzy, 11, are in the back. Noah, an attorney, is banging out a routine client memo, and Lorelei, a MacArthur Genius Award recipient whose expertise is artificial intelligence, is preparing for a conference in Montreal. A Honda Accord veers into the minivan’s lane, and Charlie jerks the wheel in a split-second reaction, killing the occupants of the Honda, Phil and Judith Drummond, retirees on their way home after vacationing with their kids and grandchildren.

Charlie and Noah escape the accident with no physical injuries, but Izzy suffers a fractured leg, Alice suffers some lacerations and a concussion, and Lorelei is in a neck brace for weeks. Despite seeing a counselor, the family contend with psychic wounds. Lorelei, who has battled crippling anxiety since the seventh grade and is a world-class catastrophist perhaps because of her cutting edge research in the dawning age of AI, is preoccupied with the Drummonds. She declares to Noah, “We killed two people.” Noah, a first generation college kid who is intimidated by his wife’s professional stature, ponders if the SensTrek would have prevented the accident altogether if Charlie hadn’t reacted. When Detective Lacey Morrissey with the Delaware State Police investigates the moments prior to the crash, she assures Noah that the mini-van was equipped with very sophisticated AI technology that will illuminate the events resulting in the crash. Noah worries that the equipment that was intended to keep them safe could be deployed by the police as evidence against Charlie. Alice and Izzy are keeping their own secrets about the moments prior to the crash, each believing that she is responsible for the incident.

The family decides to recuperate by renting a vacation home on the Chesapeake Bay for a week. Noah is disturbed when he finds that a public waterway where he and Charlie have been paddle boarding has been declared off-limits to the general public. Noah learns that the refurbished horse farm skirting the bay is owned by Daniel Monet, the founder of a multinational tech firm with significant holdings across a wide swath of the generative and practical AI space, a major Democratic Party donor, and a philanthropist supporting center left causes. The handsome and charismatic Charlie attracts the attention of Daniel’s daughter, Eurydice, and the duo begin to spend time together. When the Cassidy-Shaw family are invited to a dinner at the Monet’s compound, Noah is disturbed when Daniel and his guests seem to be overly familiar with Lorelei. Was Lorelei having an affair with Daniel? Is that how she was able to secure a rental that he owned and was able to contact him on his cellphone when the air-conditioning went on the fritz?

Holsinger has done a masterful job of weaving cutting edge technology throughout the plot. The friendless Alice confesses her darkest secrets to an AI chatbot. Drones are deployed for a search-and-rescue operation. Excerpts from Lorelei’s paper, “Silicon Souls: On the Culpability of Artificial Minds,” are threaded into some chapters which sharpen then moral issues at the heart of the novel. Lorelei counsels: “We must always take responsibility for our own mistakes. Yet in this new age of intelligent machines, we must take responsibility for theirs. Thank you Jessica Bonet of Spiegel & Grau and Net Galley for an advance copy of this thought-provoking story.

Wow!! This was a fantastic novel, combining a completely engrossing family story with surprisingly interesting and thought-provoking commentary about ethics and Artificial Intelligence. The Cassidy family are traveling, with 17-year old Charlie at the wheel, Dad (Noah) in the front passenger seat, and Mom (Lorelei) and daughters Izzy and Alice in the back of their new mini-can equipped with the latest autonomous driving technology, when suddenly there's a crash. The family members all survive, with varying degrees of injury, but an older couple whose vehicle was hit, are both killed. What follows is a detailed exploration of each family member's reactions to the crash that changed all of their lives.

With excellent character development, mostly realistic scenarios, and a manageable dose of the science involved with AI, this novel presents a compelling story that readers will find themselves thinking about over and over.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #Spiegel&Grau, publisher for providing a complimentary eARC in exchange for an objective review. Today, 7/8/25, is publication day for Culpability, and I suggest you get your copy as soon as possible.

Can the distinctly human concept of morality be applied to AI? Who is at fault when a human overrides an AI-powered vehicle to prevent a collision, resulting in two deaths? Bruce Holsinger’s new novel promises to address these and other questions regarding the way AI has seeped into our daily lives and will only continue to become more relevant when it comes to examinations of power, control, freedom, and safety. These big issues are woven into a compelling family drama centered around one deadly car accident and the five family members who may be culpable in their own ways.

I could not put this book down because I knew there would be some big twists and reveals coming my way. I got so caught up in the drama that I was willing to overlook some thematic heavy-handedness and a lot of really surface-level character development. The father of the family is the book’s sole narrator, other than the use of excerpts from documents and a transcript of conversations between one of the daughters and a chatbot. While I often think that novels with several POVs suffer from an overabundance of perspectives, this novel could have used another narrator. A great deal of exposition was done through the father’s perspective and it seemed a little unrealistic. We can’t truly know each character’s motivations and explore their culpability if we only see the story through one character’s eyes.

Aside from these point of view issues, I was fairly disappointed with the conclusion of the novel. It’s hard to explain this critique without spoiling anything for other readers, but I think there was quite a lot of juicy rising action without a correspondingly satisfying resolution.

Despite these flaws, I do think this book is worth reading because it was a highly entertaining and suspenseful reading experience that also provided a lot of opportunity for reflection on a topic that will only continue to become more prevalent in contemporary literature. This would be a great book club selection— I could see a group of readers debating Culpability at length.

Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for the opportunity to be an early reader of this title, available now!

Are you looking for a summer read that doubles as a thought-provoking book club pick? Look no further than Culpability.

The story opens with the five members of the Cassidy-Shaws en route to a lax tournament when they are involved in a devastating accident in their self-driving car. Now the family is headed to the Chesapeake Bay for a week to recoup before facing the aftermath of the accident back at home.

But each family member is hiding secrets about the accident. Noah, our protagonist, is grappling with being distracted in the passenger seat when his 17-year-old son, Charlie, is behind the wheel. Lorelei, his wife, is an expert in the field of AI morality, and she was the one insistent that the car they were in was safe.

Scattered throughout the book are interviews on the effects of AI and quotes from Lorelei’s fictional book, which explores the moral consequences of machines without morals. Each family member is reacting differently to the accident, and their week on vacation has the power to push them together or drag them apart.

Why Kirsten loves it
This novel ponders the very real human culpability when AI is involved. And it’s not just examined via the autonomous car — bots, drones, and even smart home systems are examined with a critical eye throughout the story. I love how Lorelei and Noah’s relationship was depicted – while they struggle throughout these events, it was refreshing to see a man supporting a woman who is a rockstar in her field.

Holsinger was able to frame the abstract complexities of the consequences of AI into a compelling story that was as entertaining as it was demanding of deeper study. I hope this book gets into the hands of readers everywhere so that we can all ponder the message within.

This book centers on the Cassidy-Shaw family. The teenage son is behind the wheel of a self-driving minivan when it is involved in a fatal car crash. Several family members are injured, and the family rents a house on the Chesapeake Bay to recuperate. Their neighbor there is Daniel Monet, a tech mogul, and the majority of the novel revolves around their interactions. This family drama explores the ethical consequences and moral responsibility of AI. While I found the family drama part lacking, I did really enjoy the ethical exploration. There was so much I hadn't previously considered about AI and found myself thinking about it long after I finished the book. As for the family drama aspect, I found the characters fairly 2 dimensional and though they all were harboring secrets regarding the crash, most of these were not very interesting. I really liked Holsinger's previous novels, and though this was not a complete success for me, I will continue to read his books. Thank you to NetGalley and Spiegel & Grau for an advanced digital copy. 3.75 stars

Are humans culpable for AI's mistakes? How do we live with ourselves when we implicitly elect others to die to protect our own? Holsinger is exploring this beautifully and I tore through this book. It has the perfect blend of plot and substance. At the 70% mark I did have some spoiler related questions as to why Holsinger made certain choices, but this is a perfect summer read that will actually make you think.

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

I am not used to this plot twist. The consequences of a fatal car crash? How many times...the crash was caused by AI doing the driving? *sits bolt upright*

That by itself gets my undivided attention. Of course you'd expect something more complex in the way of complications to sustain a novel-length story. You get it in the form of many, many questions, many...let's call them "obfuscations" by people who should know better, and many evil-intent lies told by scumbags.

It really is a novel of the moment. It's not a nonce book, though it has trappings still new to our culturally changed time. The real, deeper exploration is, as we're ever and always confronted with, how far will you go to protect someone you love? That is an evergreen plot because there is no one answer, no one way to think about your own answer, and a never-ending carnival of reasons the question keeps needing an answer.

Tragedy strikes an ordinary family somewhere every minute of every day. When the world is in the midst of an upheaval like the ever-increasing dominance of AI...which doesn't exist, it's really just a handy term for "data-mining executive algorithms" or some less punchy way of saying "fast, fancy databases"...the question of culpability (and Culpability) is a great way to interrogate personal responsibility. It's always worth interrogating. The parents who broke the rules and trusted AI to backstop them? Culpable. The kid who was, well, a bog-standard overconfident kid? Culpable. The vile scum who unleashed an ill-considered AI tool on the world without effective controls?

Do I even need to type it?

It was a very effective choice, making the mother an AI researcher; it left us without a clean shot at our tech-billionaire villain. (Wouldn't matter to me if he was the kindest, most fleecy-li'l-lambkin of a good guy; anyone involved in this AI nightmare of surveillance and control, with corporations acting as the Stasi, the KGB, and the CIA rolled into one, is guilty of something far worse than mere negligence.) The author's made it impossible to assign all blame in only one place. That means we're all left to think through who owes what to whom, in guilt terms; what happens as a result of our decisions is the root of all family relationships. This family's in crisis, but the way they got there? That started a long time ago.

Really back when these two Millennial solipsists had children; nay, when they hooked up the first time. No one seems to like anyone else in the autonomous van that wrecked; no one seems to know why anyone else feels the way they do; the parents are aware of their kids as entities but don't seem to understand why they're acting the way they are. In many ways, I got the impression that Author Holsinger was using the AI-aided disaster to interrogate whether the family in the van is a family at all. Are they in any fundamentally-human way related, or are they merely biologically similar in statistically significant degrees? The AI plot, then, is both point and pointed; we're asked to think about consequences, and should not stop at the simplest ones.

It's a story familiar in its outlines and so makes that deeper probing far clearer in purpose and execution. Because I've read a zillion family-in-crisis tales, that fact of defending your young was just expected and unsurprising. The last half of the story, after the consequences were pretty much on the table, was where I engaged my deeper reading skills. We're led to contemplate, and to contextualize, love and guilt and privilege and responsibility as a nexus; if you could do that without applying it, and its results, to yourself, I think you're deluded.

It is obvious Culpability was a carefully selected title. Guilt and responsibility twined like snakes around each other, and around duty and obligation. These are topics readers love in their stories because they are truly universal. The ending of this story is not going to please everyone. It is absolutely the best ending to my thinking, because it foregrounds the single greatest weakness of trusting, as in "with your life," A System:

Humans are chaotic, and no system will ever manage chaos.

Culpability is a masterfully written novel that deserves a full 5/5 stars for its gripping narrative, nuanced characters, and thought-provoking exploration of guilt and responsibility. From the very first page, I was drawn into the story’s tense atmosphere and emotionally charged dilemmas, each twist revealing new layers of complexity and humanity. The author’s skillful prose and keen insight into the human psyche make every character feel real and relatable, while the moral questions at the heart of the plot linger long after the final chapter. "Culpability" is both a page-turner and a profound meditation on the choices we make, making it a must-read for fans of literary fiction and psychological drama alike.

ulpability is one of those books that should have been a home run for me. i am a well-established hater of AI, and the concept of a novel that explores the ethics of AI and its integration with human philosophies and blame is so compelling. probing the relevant 21st century questions about tech ethics in the context of a family drama rather than speculative fantasy/sci-fi could, in theory, make these concepts feel much more pressing and tangible.

the first third/half-ish of the novel was really working for me. aside from noah spending a weird amount of time convincing the reader of how hot his son was (did this really need to be written in first person??), i found the questions that it posed about AI to be interesting, the story tightly paced and effectively sinister when it needed to be. but the middle dragged a bit, and the elements of the story that initially felt dark and mysterious started to fizzle and drag without ever really becoming interesting, the twists predictable, the characters stagnant.

and with every chapter, yet another social problem is probed at without really fleshing out any of the ones before it. we jump from the military industrial complex to bias in the american judicial system to the contemporary trolley problems baked into decision-making algorithms. it all just feels so flat in the end, and the ending leaves me questioning a bit what holsinger’s opinions on AI really are, let alone what he’s trying to express through each character.

the mixed-media format added a nice texture to the novel, and this book does feel prescient in really undeniable ways. but i also resist the idea that runaway AI is a foregone conclusion, or that these kinds of pseudo-human decision making technologies are something that is mostly good with a dash of ethical dilemma thrown in. holsinger might just be a bit more centrist about the issue than i wanted and was expecting 🤷‍♀️

thank you to netgalley and spiegel & grau for an e-ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Culpability is such a prolific novel about artificial intelligence and the ethical minds behind its programming.The synopsis for this one is pretty spot on, so I won’t retell that here. I do think the book is pulled in several directions, but was thought provoking regarding ethics. The family drama is all over the place and seems less focused. It was trite at times. However, I think that it made this book a better fit for me to have that additional layer of intrigue among the Cassidy-Shaws. I was engaged with the story from beginning to end. The narrative is split between Noah’s perspective, Alice’s conversation with Blair, and snippets from Lorelai’s work on the ethics of AI.


Culpability’s narrative is a novel concept. I cannot think of another book that falls in this category to have a likeness to compare it. Already I know that some concepts and ethical dilemmas observed here will stay with me. What a well done book, in my opinion!


Thank you Netgalley and Spiegel & Grau for this ARC!