I received an ARC through NetGalley, and below is my voluntary and honest review.

This book was a bit of a roller coaster. I was immediately drawn in by the kind of Star Wars-vibes cover, and the main character being a scientist who is looking for extra-terrestrial life. Like, that's just so cool, right? Looking for aliens as a job sounds ridiculous at first glance, but the universe is so vast, it's actually very logical that intelligent life exists out there somewhere, even if we won't find them anytime soon. First impression: positive.

Then I absolutely hated the first 30%, and thought about stopping several times. And then, finally, I was won over by Gwen and Ty's relationship and their character growth, and ended up enjoying the rest of the book.

I'll start with the negatives because they came first. A lot of the comedy in this book relies on second-hand embarrassment, which I had thought was universally agreed to be unpopular. Then, the two main characters ending up in the same place was initially kicked off by a long-ish scene that involved Gwen's scientist coworkers being incredibly misogynistic, and I'm sure it was meant to be comedic, but it wasn't. A bit later, while Gwen was busy suffering, all I could think was that she could have avoided at least half of this if it wasn't for the hella sexist assumption she (or rather her best friend and advisor) made earlier. Not a great start to the book.

Forget love at first sight. It'll be love at first fight for this girl.

Fortunately, Gwen and Ty actually had great chemistry, so things improved greatly once they started spending time with each other. I liked their banter, and I love a relationship where they can have debates without actually turning into fights, and it tracks with Gwen's expectations for her future relationship. The plot itself was interesting, and I liked how the side characters were gradually fleshed out as Gwen got to know them better, and how Gwen and Ty themselves had a lot of character development and defining moments.

One last thing I want to pick out is Ty's brother, Michael. Michael is autistic, and Ty has been essentially raising him alone since they were kids, so their relationship is pretty tight. Now, I'm not autistic myself so I'm not the expert opinion on this, but... to me, Michael felt about as stereotypical as you can possibly get in a book. I mean hey, autistic people are diverse and maybe the author based Michael on someone she knows, but it just Happened to hit basically every autistic stereotype I can think of, so it didn't feel like positive representation. Also, I have to warn for significant past ableism from their father.

In summary, after a pretty rough beginning I found this a fun and romantic book, with some really heartwarming, romantic and funny scenes between the two leads. Many of my problems disappeared as the book went on, and my unease with Michael is the only thing that really stayed until the end.

(Okay but also, Ty becoming a billionaire through the power of hard work? Kinda irrealistic.)

edit: I only realized when I went back looking for a quote that there is no further mention of Gwen's fuck-up from the beginning where the teacher said their asses would be sued into oblivion.