I liked the author's dedication to making the science as real as possible, and the central theme is creative. However, as is common in books such as this, characterization & character growth come in second place.
The protagonist is a failed academic-turned-middle-school-teacher who is thrown into the center of the most amazing discovery in mankind's history. In true form, this unassuming teacher becomes central to the development of mankind's response to the bacteria eating the sun (and boy are they hungry}, eventually becoming second in command for the entire project...
which of course becomes a source of instant international collaboration and cooperation, with every nation big and small pitching in to do their part (because of course, what other response could there be?)
We are treated to a big spoiler along the way regarding the protagonist's development, but as he has already progressed to overcome that psychological hurdle, there is no tension, no real character growth. He's already been there, done that.
I'm not even going to go into the interspecies communication aspect, where two individuals as completely different as could be meet, learn to talk to each other in a couple of days, and by day 3 are trading jokes and yukking it up -- because of course, modern American humor is interstellar, right?
I would have loved this book as a teen. Now, not so much. It was fast-paced, and the material problems facing the protagonist were interesting puzzles. But otherwise, there are just too many tropes to make this a significantly interesting book.
