The only reason I didn't give this a 4/5 is that it felt like there was a lot of just... talking back and forth. Each of the other books featured a great amount of worldbuilding, mixed with small moments of slice of life instances, eventually leading to the climactic moment that sort of tests the characters in some way.
This entry did the same, but I think it was just a little too ambitious. By including so many characters that were literally so alien from a lot of the leads we've had so far, it felt like Chambers wanted to give us as much context as possible whenever possible. While there were some moments, where this really worked, other times it just felt... exhausting.
While I loved getting to know all of the different aliens of the Galactic Commons, I wish I had to know them a little more organically.