I know a lot of people who have read this book and generally speaking they have either really loved it or really not liked it at all.  Having previously read another book by Becky Chambers which I did not love, I had a suspicion that I would be in the group that don't like the book, and sadly this proved to be the case. 

This book has no plot, it's a series of events which happen to the crew of a ship. This in itself is not too much of an issue for me, but when books have no plot I expect them to instead have a good character arc, and unfortunately that wasn't the case here. Few of the characters experience much development; and where there is some, it is largely confined to one of the individual events rather than slowly developing throughout the novel. The characters themselves were decently written as were the relationships between them, but it wasn't enough to hold my interest. 

My biggest issue with the book however is that from early on right until the end it felt like reading an alien anthropology textbook. Half the book is descriptions of aliens, their biology and culture. There's nothing subtle about it, just constant infodumps. 

There were some things I enjoyed. One storyline in particular genuinely interested me, and I would happily have explored it further, but sadly soon enough that event was over and it was onto the next one. The writing and audiobook narration were easy to listen to and clearly a huge amount of thought had been put into the worldbuilding. 

Despite my own opinion, I would still suggest that other people give this book a chance because I know so many people who have loved it. It's just very much not for me.