Touch

This novel by Courtney Maum could be seen as a reactionary call to arms - as long as those arms are human. Sloane Jacobsen is a powerful trend forecaster, with global companies paying to hear her opinions about the future. Her recent forecasts on the family, for various reasons, say children are an extravagant indulgence (she's hailed as the "anti-mom"). So tech giant Mammoth hires her to lead their annual conference, this one celebrating the voluntarily childless. Soon into her contract, Sloane begins to sense a movement against electronics and toward empathetic human contact. Her predictions are completely against her employer's rationale: her partner, a French "neo-sensualist", publishes an op-ed on the death of penetrative sex, and her closest relationship is with her driverless car. In spite of all that, Sloane is convinced her Instincts are spot on and she goes about defending human interaction, opening herself up to love and connection along the way.