Really nice book. The description of the different species and their interactions and prejudices was fun too. Loved the main female lead very much, too. A really fun, feel-good book. Like I read in another review, there are good people and there are bad people, but people are mostly good. Bad things happen, but overall, life is good. Aliens are strange, but so are humans. Prejudices are foolish. Love is love, period. I would like to continue the series, I think.
I was worried that the length of this book would be an issue. But, not at all. The story was gripping enough for the pages to fly by; I was quite engrossed in the tale. Not knowing much about the actual historical facts was not a problem either; in fact, I think that helped me enjoy the tale even more. I am generally against the forced inclusion of new-age tropes, but in this book, everything seemed to flow so well together. I now see that I’m not anti-anything as a rule: all I want is a well-told story, whatever the themes/tropes. Loved this book.
A novel filled with computer programming - That part of it took me back to my college days. A story about the people who build games - I have never read a book with this theme - that was the best, the most interesting and most novel part of this book for me. Nonetheless I was extremely bored in the beginning and frequently in between - tempted to DNF several times. It became easier to read as it went on, though. The author seems to be trying too hard to include all the woke tropes in this one book; that wasn’t necessary at all.
I read this book on and off and I think that might have impacted my enjoyment quite a bit. It was a cozy mystery kind of book and I ought to have enjoyed it more - but I didn’t. I was bored in places, not sure why. It is still a good story; I might read other books in the series, if it works for some future readathons.