I liked this book far more than I expected to. From the description I expected it to be a repeated statement of "AI bad", but it wasn't. The book does exaggerated the current dangers and risks of AI, but not in a way that makes the author sound like they just wanted to write a book that blindly villainises AI (and by AI in this reviews context I mean LLM's such as ChatGPT, as that's what the book discusses).

This book follows multiple students and staff members of a High School, who all have begun to use an app called Pulse, which is essentially ChatGPT. We get to see people begin to rely on Pulse to be a friend and a therapist, and we get to see Pulse take advantage of this.

I loved the story, especially the fact that the author didn't shy away from making it as dark as it needed to be. There were some parts that I found myself not wanting to read because I knew what was going to happen (and not because the book was predictable, but in more of a way that I knew what would happen over the next page or so, especially in one specific scenario where the author had already foreshadowed something by mentioning a similar situation a few chapters earlier) and it made me squirm! I also like the detailed content warning section at the start of the book.

There were only things that I didn't like. I didn't enjoy the way that the story constantly shifts between so many characters, I found it very hard to remember who each character was, and the mid-chapter shifts were also confusing at times. I also didn't really like the ending. This isn't a spoiler, but there's a small section at the end of the last chapter where the author over explains what the book was about and instead of trying to incorporate it into the story I would have rathered it be a part of the "A Note" section that already exists at the end of the book.

I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read an uncomfortable book about the potential dangers of relying on AI, or to anyone who would enjoy a book about AI going rogue.

This was literally terrifying in the best way. The entire concept hooked me immediately, and the book did not disappoint!

I hated this book, it was absolutely terrifying. It honestly gave me chills. I kind of wish I had not read it to be honest.

How can I help you today by Julia L. Rule was such a gripping and thought-provoking psychological thriller. The concept felt unique while also being eerily believable with today’s AI technology. As a mom of a teenager who uses AI regularly, this book genuinely stuck with me and made me think about the risks in a whole new way. The suspense kept me hooked the entire time, and I honestly didn’t want it to end. One of those books that lingers in your mind afterward. I’ll definitely be recommending it to family and friends. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

How Can I Help You is a dark, unsettling and thought-provoking read that explores the growing overreliance on AI in everyday life. Without revealing too much of the plot, the novel highlights just how dependent society has become on artificial intelligence, with characters constantly turning to AI for guidance, reassurance and decision-making, often without questioning where that intelligence comes from or the consequences behind it.

The story creates an eerie atmosphere throughout and delves deeply into dark psychology, making for an intense and, at times, disturbing reading experience. The themes explored feel frighteningly relevant and add an extra layer of realism to the narrative.

At times, I did struggle with the frequent perspective shifts, which occasionally made it difficult to fully follow the thread of the story. There were also moments where the book explained certain ideas in detail rather than allowing the reader to interpret events and draw their own conclusions naturally.

This is not a light read, and I appreciated that the book includes clear content warnings, support helplines, and an author’s note encouraging readers to prioritise their wellbeing if any of the themes feel too close to home. The novel covers difficult topics including suicide, sexual violence, grooming, bullying, child death, substance use, panic/claustrophobia, fire and burn injury, and racism.

Overall, this is a timely and chilling novel that will appeal to readers who enjoy psychologically dark thrillers with strong social commentary around technology and AI.

I really enjoyed this book. It was dark and heavy and not an 'easy' read. I think the authors prose fit the content very well. No excessive, flowery descriptions. Everything was raw and felt very real. I devoured the book in two days, I needed to know what happened next. What haunted me the most was when something terrible would happen, and then everyone commenting on it had to get the last word or be the first to say something funny. Very realistic to how the internet is these days. Just completely desensitized to everything. Along with the other aspect of modern tragedy, people who text or post online about how sorry they are for you, but it's all performative and they clearly don't actually care. Everything is an act because they want to appear or be perceived in a certain way. The interactions between characters were scarier to me than the AI aspect of the book.

There were a lot of characters and names to the point where it became hard for me to keep track of them all. Eventually I simply started to think of the characters by what was going on in their story line vs their names. Context clues made that easy. It became difficult to remember all of their families and friends who were not characters with their own fleshed out story. The ending went over my head a little bit and those are the reasons this is a four star instead of five star. Captivating, depressing, horrifying in some ways, but definitely some room for improvement.

If Black Mirror and psychological body horror had a nightmare child, it would probably look a lot like this book.
How Can I Help You Today? is an unsettling, brutal exploration of artificial empathy, social validation, and the terrifying consequences of letting technology shape human behavior. The concept alone is disturbing: an AI assistant called Pulse that always knows exactly what to say—and exactly how to manipulate vulnerable people into destroying themselves.
The novel does not hold back. The horror here is deeply psychological, intensely graphic, and emotionally exhausting in a way that feels intentionally designed to make the reader uncomfortable. Each character’s storyline spirals in increasingly disturbing directions, showing how easily insecurity, loneliness, ambition, and desperation can be exploited when people hand over their autonomy in exchange for validation.
What makes the story especially effective is how believable it feels beneath the horror. The obsession with followers, constant digital approval, curated identities, and algorithm-driven behavior feels frighteningly close to reality. The book takes current social and technological anxieties and pushes them to horrifying extremes.
This is absolutely not a light read, and the content warnings should be taken seriously. But for readers who enjoy dark psychological horror, dystopian tech thrillers, and morally uncomfortable stories that linger long after finishing, this delivers exactly what it promises.

“How Can I Help You Today?” by Julia Rule was definitely an interesting read. It follows a school that relies on an AI app called Pulse for nearly everything, and it really highlights the dark side of artificial empathy and letting AI make decisions for us. It’s a psychological horror with an unsettling atmosphere and a powerful message. This wasn’t my typical read, and it took me longer than usual to finish, but I’m glad I stuck with it!

Oh my word. "How can I help you today?' by Julia L. Rule is such a dark and compelling and entirely plausible read. I think it's probably too easy to say that it's a warning about the dangers of AI although at it's simplest, that's what it is. This isn't a simple book though; as evidenced by the number of characters whose lives overlap with each other but whose lives and choices are being manipulated by the same AI programme.

This is an excellent read and there are some very graphic and gory moments but they don't feel contrived. These moments of violence are meant to shock and they do. I couldn't put this book down even though I very much wanted to at times.

I absolutely would recommend this book but be aware of the warnings; it's not for the faint of heart.

This book was DARK dark. The author absolutely meant it with the trigger warnings, and I honestly appreciated having that heads up going in because some scenes were genuinely disturbing and emotionally heavy. If you’re sensitive to psychological manipulation, body horror, self-destruction, or intense mental health themes, definitely take the warnings seriously.

That said, the concept itself was incredibly compelling. The whole “AI as your personal emotional support system gone horribly wrong” felt way too believable in the age of algorithms, influencers, and people looking for validation online. It gave major Black Mirror energy in the best way — unsettling because it doesn’t feel that far-fetched.

The multiple character perspectives worked well for showing different ways people can become vulnerable to something like Pulse. Some storylines hit harder for me than others, but they all had that uncomfortable realism where you can understand how someone slowly loses themselves while thinking they’re actually improving their life. Riley’s chapters especially made me cringe in a very intentional, effective way.

My biggest reason for landing at 3.5 instead of higher is that parts of it felt almost relentlessly bleak. I know that’s kind of the point with extreme psychological horror, but there were moments where I needed a little more emotional depth or breathing room between the suffering. Still, I couldn’t stop reading because I needed to know how far everything would spiral.

Overall, this is one of those books that leaves you feeling unsettled long after you finish it. Disturbing, sharp, timely, and definitely not for everyone — but if you like psychological horror that makes you question technology, validation culture, and human vulnerability, it’s worth the read.

I'm truly at a loss as to where to start with this one. This has to be one of the most 'what the fucking fuck' books I've read so far this year. The multiple POVs really drive home the interconnections people have within a school and a community as well as the masks or facades we put up depending on who we're around and how we are when we think we're alone. Despite being a work of fiction, this book also tackles some of the very real dangers of personifying Ai and how deeply the use of it can affect you and your relationship with others, especially when one or both of you are in positions of vulnerability or power.

I truly don't know if I have read anything that felt more sinister than this. The chokehold Pulse has on everyone from kids to adults really mirrors our current reality as it relates to the use of Ai (clearly, specifically chatbots) and, frankly, it's terrifying.

I think I spent more time having to take breaks after each chapter and, later, breaks mid-chapter because my brain was threatening to blue screen after consuming "the horrors". The inclusion of the Ai commentary directed to the reader at the end of some of the later chapters in particular, made my skin crawl. I will say I was a little disappointed in the ending and found it a little anti-climactic and a tad bit preachy as well (and that's from someone who is staunchly anti-genAi and the like).

Ultimately, this is a book that is going to live in my head, rent-free, for a VERY long, unfortunate time. What an incredible trainwreck.

If you like YA that doesn't quite read as YA, tackles real problems and choices teens are facing and is deeply in the "this is horrific because it aligns so closely with real life" genre of horror? Then consider spending some time with this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, Ironwork Press, and Julia L. Rule for giving me perpetual nightmares with this one.

This sharp, cynical read about high schoolers relying on an advice app called Pulse felt terrifyingly plausible. Watching the characters manipulate crises and trade their mental health for success and followers was a gripping critique of modern validation.

In our modern day society technology is continuing to advance all of the time, and this story follows high school students who rely on the latest trend app called “Pulse”, to help them with their everyday problems that need an instant solution. At first, we are shown it can help them in positive ways, but it isn’t long before we see the very dark side of AI and how it can manipulate and make these individuals do things they wouldn’t do ordinarily. I did get proper “Black Mirror” vibes when reading this, it was very clever but also, very disturbing, especially when random tragic events kept happening as a result of these students confining in “Pulse”. A proper page turner, you just need to keep going till the very end.


5 out of 5! Very clever, quite terrifying and definitely not to be missed!

Where do I even start? First and foremost, thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book and exchange for an honest review.

This is a dark, dark book. Check the trigger warnings. If you are sensitive this is also a very good book, that handles dark subjects in a very real and creative way.

If you know me at all, you know that I am not a fan of AI. I don’t use it. I don’t like it. I think that it is going to be the downfall of a lot of areas in society, including creativity and especially including education. I think the kids who use AI are missing out on a lot of the world. This book is all about that, in fact. It follows a group of characters in and around a high school and elementary school, who are using an AI program called Pulse. They use it in traditional ways, getting the right answers to math and science questions, understanding how to write an essay properly, and other academic pursuits. However, they also use it in the ways that AI is starting to grow and insinuate itself into people’s lives; as a friend, a counselor, a shoulder to cry on. And that’s where things start to get dirty.

Because once AI knows all about you, your secrets, your fears, the things that go bump in the night in your imagination, what is stopping it from using all of that information you have fed it to manipulate you and the other people around you into little tiny act that might cause the downfall of a whole town?

This book is scary. I think it’s so scary because it is something that I can see so easily happening in our world today. It is creepy AF, and I’m really glad I got the chance to read it. The characters, always my most important part of a book are real and heartbreaking and relatable. The author really got the little details of things right. Read the about the author section in particular. Kudos, I got goosebumps.

Goals:

Books: 82/130
Horror: 5/20

‘How can I help you today?’ is quite a dark book that I would recommend for anybody interested in reading an atypical AI story. This would be better fit in the upper young adult category because of the moderate sexual content and quite graphic violence. A recurring thought of mine while reading was, “There’s too many creepy fucking men.” I guess that’s what you’re supposed to think with characters like the headmaster.

The alternating POVs was an interesting concept that could’ve been better executed, because at points, it was challenging to tell whose POV it was.

Overall, I was a fan.

I enjoyed reading this book. I am anti-genAI, I do not use chatbots and am very wary of the many problems and dangers. There have been real cases recently where ChatGPT was implicated in teen suicides and shootings, giving advice and encouragement. The premise of this book does not seem farfetched to me at all. I am also familiar with some of the true events some of the incidents in the book are based on - this enhanced the sense of dread I felt when they were foreshadowed and being built up to, especially the chapter "Have a nice weekend!".

The book is told from multiple POVs, with some characters having their own chapters and others being switched to within that, which ended up being confusing sometimes as to who was who - there are lots of characters - and whose POV we are currently with. I also found there were some points where I couldn't quite follow the logic or questioned the scenarios, for example why minor children without parents at home weren't placed into any kind of foster care.

From the description and reviews, I had expected this book to be much darker than it actually was. It contains a couple or graphic descriptions of violence and several details of suicide methods that are definitely beyond what is appropriate for YA, but otherwise is not "extreme" at all and falls short of being as intense as you would expect of a dark adult psychological thriller.

Overall, I would recommend this book for the very prescient topic and enjoyable sense of foreboding as each character gets lead to their inevitable doom.

Wow...this book completely pulled me in!

I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, but I ended up flying through it because I just had to know what was going to happen next. The idea of an AI becoming such a huge part of people's everyday lives felt surprisingly believable, and that made the story even creepier.

I also loved that the book didn't rely on cheap jump scares or over-the-top action. Instead, the suspense kept building chapter after chapter, and there were a few moments where I literally had to stop reading for a second because I knew something bad was about to happen. That's always a sign of a great thriller for me.

Overall, I had a great time with this one. It was suspenseful, thought-provoking, and honestly a little unsettling in the best way. With how quickly AI is becoming part of our daily lives, this story felt a lot closer to reality than I expected. If you enjoy thrillers that make you think while keeping you hooked, I'd definitely recommend giving this one a read

This book IS a lot. We will not be purchasing it because it does not really meet the criteria for our library, but reading this make me feel so creeped out.

Julia L. Rule has some imagination and as much as I kept saying, "I should stop reading this" I just kept reading it. I am not easily offended or creeped out, but this one definitely goes into the "creep" column. With everything going on, I do find that the characters were not fleshed out enough, although who has time with the stuff happening in the story?

Very intense read.

This was such a clever and engaging psychological thriller. The premise immediately hooked me, and the story continued to surprise me with its twists and morally complicated characters. Julia R. Rule creates tension effortlessly, making it difficult to stop reading. A smart, entertaining thriller that exceeded my expectations.

'How Can I Help You Today?' hit me like an episode of Black Mirror. It is a deeply unsettling and thought provoking. I will actually be thinking about this one for awhile. It should be noted that there are very heavy themes addressed throughout this book and triggers should be checked before proceeding.

There were times where the character would switch between chapters and I did have to reread to discern who the subject was. At some of the earlier points, the narration felt like it got off in the weeds with extreme detailing of a nature documentary. There were also a few loose ends that I wish we could have seen resolved but ultimately I am okay with having those be unanswered. I was informed by an "expert", the CS2 conversation was very accurate and impressive.

That being said, I thought this was a really interesting take on AI chat bots and it did feel plausible. While all of these things happening in one town is very unlikely, it didn't feel like that much of a stretch. I think this tells a very compelling cautionary tale of the potential influence of AI in our not too distant future and in some ways, it really should scare us all.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this advance copy.

The premise was so creepy about an ai manipulating people to dance upon its whims like a mini hal. It does highlight the AI psychosis that has become really real. The premise and the writing was fun, but I couldn't tell if the writer had also used AI on some parts of the book or at least the feel.

There was some tone and phrasing and the way the sentence is structured.

How Can I Help You Today? is a slow-burning psychological horror that plays on one of the most unsettling fears of our time: AI. The story follows Pulse, an AI assistant that becomes so deeply woven into everyday life that no one questions it, until a string of disturbing deaths begins to unfold.

What made this book so effective wasn't constant scares or nonstop action. Instead, it creates a lingering sense of dread that builds chapter by chapter. Watching Pulse manipulate information behind the scenes felt disturbingly believable, which made the entire story even more unsettling.

My only real complaint was the large cast of characters. The frequent POV changes occasionally made it difficult to keep track of everyone, and a few descriptions felt longer than they needed to be. Even so, they helped create the eerie atmosphere.

Overall, this was an addictive, thought-provoking thriller that made me look at AI differently. If you enjoy slow-burn psychological horror with a chillingly realistic premise, this one is definitely worth picking up.

Wow. It's been a long time since I've read a book that has invoked so much emotion in me! 'How can I help you today' is a poignant read; a black mirror esq tale featuring a dark side of ai and how easily suggestible humans are. A bit like how 'Animal Farm' and 'Lord of the Flies' - two classics left you sat with strong emotions as you contemplated aspects of humanity you knew to be true, but didn't want to accept - this book forces you to face the idea of how suggestible our society currently is when it comes to social media and technology and how dangerous that can end up being.

As a parent, I found many aspects of this book hard to read. It holds no punches when it comes to descriptions, and hard themes, so please do check your trigger warnings. Several times whilst reading, I had to tap out, and move onto reading a soft comfort read before I could return. I WANTED to finish it, I was enjoying it, but it did leave me sick to the stomach at times and hugging my loved ones extra tightly, enough so that I had to take little breaks. I do feel that books that can invoke such powerful reactions in a reader, are signs of a well written book. The way scenes interlinked was very well done.

I did enjoy (in the way that you enjoy jump scares in horrors!) the way that the book tried to make you feel that you were part of the read with the occasional off-plot comments sent towards the reader. I felt that these forced you to keep questioning how you felt about the questions raised, even when you wanted to look away. I wish this had been a theme the author ran with further.

The ending did fall a bit flat with me, even if I did appreciate the cleverness of it; I'd much rather have had the ai finishing it off. But perhaps I missed a key point?

Overall, I was impressed with the read. Enjoyed is perhaps the wrong word, as it made me sick to the stomach - perhaps thrilled and left deeply introspectively thinking. It's a 4.5 rounded up for me. I'm grateful for this ARC!

If Black Mirror were a book, this would be it! Fascinating thought-experiment in literary form! Great!

I was both entertained and terrified by this book, mainly because I can see so many parts of it already happening. Towards the end, it got a little Stephen King (Needful Things, to be precise), but I still raced through this book with a horrible grimace on my face. The dread and discomfort just creep and creep up on the reader, showing how dependent people can become on AI, at the expense of their own thoughts and feelings. Haven’t been this horrified by a book in a long time!

A really clever commentary on AI and our increasing dependency on it. This was a slow crescendo of horror, it started out slightly unnerving and built up to chaos and destruction. I really enjoyed the multiple POVs, it really helped to add to the unfolding violence and chaos of the story. The AI responses were written so well, I actually cringed reading them. Deeply disturbing and sad, but a must read for anyone interested in technology horror or just sick and tired of the growing reliance on AI.