I was sold on the title: a story about a little vacuum that (somehow) has to save the day. A welcome new entry in the vacuum-fiction canon.

A bit of time passed between picking this up and starting it, so I’d forgotten most of the synopsis—and I think the book is better for it.

This one hit me in all the right places. Dixon builds a microcosm inside a dystopian future, and it’s hard not to read it as a pointed take on technology, AI, and the mess we’re creating for ourselves. It doesn’t go full Terminator, but that almost makes it scarier—the premise feels uncomfortably plausible.

The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances pulled me in right away. I settled into the characters’ lives quickly, and I genuinely cared about all of them—the appliances as much as the people. That’s Dixon’s skill as a writer: he makes me think, and he makes me feel. This one did both.

*5 stars