First off, my 3.5 star rating does not reflect my typical rating system, which is thus:

1 star: terrible all around
2 stars: some good qualities, but poorly executed
3 stars: just fine, average
4 stars: good read, but will probably not think about it too often
5 stars: amazing writing, life-changing, expands my worldview

<b>Things that I can understand work for others, but didn’t work for me:</b>
- The writing style and how it portrays the characters. Natasha Pulley writes with her characters in the forefront, always, with all their complicated emotions and choices. January is a sensitive and reluctant hero, and at one point, contemplates that things would’ve been better if he’d sacrificed himself. He has a lot of self-doubt, and the author used that to make use of a trope that I don’t enjoy, which is that January assumes something without ever checking with anyone else. I think it’s fairly obvious what’s going on, and even though it does pay off in a way, I found the author’s characterization of January a bit lacking at times.
- The plot/inciting event. I found the setup a bit unbelieveable that January would make a sarcastic comment to Senator Gale, then Gale would do damage control and ask him to marry them (all people on Mars go by they/them pronouns; there is no gender). It’s a typical romcom trope, which to me felt out of place.
- The humor. There are many footnotes in the book, explaining the nuances of language on Mars, some sciencey things, basically expanding on what the world of Mars is like. They’re often tongue in cheek, “let me explain this” in a deadpan way. At least, that’s how it read to me, and it’s not my style of humor. 
- One more thing: there are callbacks to certain scenes that are “blink or you’ll miss it.” This is a book that demands that you pay attention, and it took me several days to read it. And yet I felt like the book meandered about, which didn’t work for me.

<b>Some things I liked:</b>
- The world. I will say, there is a lot of character stuff going on, but there’s a ton of world-building. It’s written about without any fuss or fanfare, but because January is our audience stand-in character, the awe, amazement, and also frustration are easy to digest. It’s a world very much influenced by a lack of gravity, and how that affects people from Earth and the people who are born on Mars. I can tell Natasha Pulley put a lot of thought into that aspect. It reads as realistic sci-fi, which felt different and interesting.
- The political aspects. So from there, it follows that there are two factions, the Earthstrongers who are 3x as strong as those born on Mars, and must wear cages to protect others from themselves. There’s a lot of division about what to do about the Earthstrongers, and also the refugees who are fleeing Earth, which is suffering from the effects of climate change. There’s also the cultural divide, where Earthstrongers are seen as more crude people; they’re shorter, stronger, and more fit for hard labor, and they are not given citizenship. There’s an antagonist, but who supports the refugees. It’s complicated.
- Other aspects: there’s some stuff for language nerds, some techy stuff like an AI named Ariel (who I really wanted more from) and haptics that change how you interact with the world, some pets both big and small and young children for the “save the cat” moments, a bit of gentle romance, a bit of mystery - but the one thing I really want to highlight, and to expand more on my previous point about the plot/inciting incident, is that this is a book about crisis management, maintaining image, and wielding political power. 

<b>So, in conclusion:</b> The book is just fine/average for me. But I can tell the author is doing something special, and if a few things had been executed differently, this would’ve been a 5 star read for me.

Also this review turned out to be much longer than anticipated, but I think this book deserves it.