This is a good example of the literary scifi intersections that, unfortunately, epitomize the problem from the literary side: the scifi conceit is always purely used as a device and never as an examination or lens, which (somehow) is not the case in commercial genre fiction. So, we end up with people saturated in literary fiction excited about concepts that are far more explored and compelling in the genre they don’t read, and end up thinking it’s incredibly novel and compelling (cough Klara and the Sun),

It by no means this is a bad novel, per se, it’s just a large pet peeve of mine, having consumed a lot of literary and commercial fiction both. I didn’t feel like the novel had anything interesting to say around the conceit and the actual plot focusing on such wider issues it only managed to touch on it, while we got a solipsistic view of a progressing relationship from people situated in completely different cultures. The plot felt secondary and simplistic, and the ending all but a foregone conclusion based on the way the story was told from perspective it was in.