Book Review: Your Behavior Will Be Monitored

Megacorporation UniView is poised to cement their reputation as “the most trusted name in AI.” After pioneering self-driving and HR bots, UniView is now barreling toward an audacious new launch. That is, if they can pull it off in time.

Enter Noah. A down-and-out copywriter reeling from a midlife crisis, he isn’t the typical hire for a groundbreaking tech company full of brilliant engineers and run by a cutthroat CEO. But Lex, UniView’s Head of HR and one of their greatest successes, makes no mistakes—her algorithm ensures it.

UniView’s latest venture, a bot named Quinn that creates revolutionary personalized advertising, needs expert training. Noah needs to teach Quinn, who is a much better student than he ever could have hoped for, the finer points of consumer motivation and the art of writing a catchy tagline. But when corporate competitors force UniView to accelerate their timeline to market, guardrails around the AI loosen just as Quinn is learning a bit too much.

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored, the debut novel by Justin Feinstein, will be published April 7, 2026. Tachyon Publications provided an early galley for review.

This is a very different kind of novel. Told via company emails, chat messages, TED Talks and more, it certainly does not look like most fiction that I read. This leads to two qualities: a quicker read (as it is mostly conversational) and also a bit cold and distant (which can mirror the technology interface elements that are key to the tale). I only occasionally found myself missing descriptive passages about locations and body language, but those were not needed for the kind of story Feinstein is telling here.

Of course, with AI being front and center in the narrative and themes, it also makes the story very timely in the year of its publication. How a reader feels about the use of AI will also factor into how the story is received. As someone who sees the benefits of AI, I certainly come to it with my own opinions and biases. Still, the story does lay out a cautionary element to it, so it attempts to balance the argument a bit.

If you are down for a fast-moving, contemporary tale exploring real-world topical themes, I would recommend you check this one out when it hits the shelves.