July read-a-long with Books and Tea Book Club!

All this time, the perfect idyllic space story with casual diversity and inclusivity that I've been looking for? It's been right here. (There's good representation for not just sexuality but different ethnicities; they don't all have obvious Earth counterparts but the themes of prejudice and bias are certainly still applicable.) The characters are wonderfully wholesome; it's a big happy space family for the most part, with the requisite prodigal offspring and estranged members that keep things interesting. The plot is clearly present and well-developed, but straightforward enough to let the characters and worldbuilding take center stage.

Pretty much my only issue with this book is the infodumping, which is admittedly pretty hard to get around when the setting (in this case, the known universe) is so different from what we, the readers, are familiar with. And of course I'd rather get it all established upfront so I have the proper context to understand the characters, their behavior, etc., so it's more than tolerable.