I have no idea what I expected this book to be, mostly because I saw that Charlie Jane Anders of io9 had written it and she has excellent taste as a reviewer, so the content didn't really matter.
Which is good; I read the book and I'm still not sure how to describe it. Technofuturism meets magical realism, maybe? A triumphant story that takes place amid catastrophe? The young adult novel of two people who grow up, grow apart, grow together?
All of the above, I suppose. It was extremely enjoyable and Anders has an amazing talent for keeping her narrative matter-of-fact. The language of the narrative had the same cadence as verisimilitudinous fiction, but the plot was straight out of genre. And she combined them flawlessly.