Swing and a miss, I’m afraid. This book starts off strong with an intriguing world that is never developed beyond the surface and doesn’t feel like it’s been thought through very well. Characters are all very one note and don’t react to things the way humans would. The plot is nonexistent for a big part of book and then suddenly explodes in a confusing mess. Some random thoughts:

-Snark =/= personality
-Bickering =/= chemistry
-Constant unsubtle teasing of a romance that is just no
-Undeserved redemption of an abuser
-So much telling instead of showing
-MC keeps acting in ways inconsistent with her stated core values
-A character who comments that she’s never even seen someone swim before is able to swim no problem??
-A tantalising mystery set up at the beginning is completely dropped till 3/4 through
-MC talks like a fanfic character from 2012
-Huge life changing events happen with zero emotional reaction from affected characters
-Huge life changing events keep happening off camera
-Frequent mentions of an intrastellar army and battles but there’s never any mention of any other systems they could be at war with. Like there’s one military for all the planets so they can’t be fighting each other and some characters have fought battles so it’s not like it’s idle but no one even seems to be aware of any life on other solar systems
-Such an interesting idea for a world but all the world building goes into aesthetics with no consideration for how it actually works