I suspect this book fell into the "the headspace was wrong, but the library had it right now so that's when i read it".
It was fascinating and doing really cool things and also I didn't get into it the way I expected to, which is always irritating when you like a book but your brain isn't willing to go there.
And it kept being interesting, though, especially as it tried to hold the messiness of change in all its glory and what a bonkers "indistinguishable from magic" story would actually be like.