I enjoyed "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" quite a bit. Others have mentioned that it's in the same vein as Firefly or Farscape, which is accurate, and puts it right in my sweet spot. The world is well realized and complex, and while there are occasional expository digressions to get some of that stuff worked out, it's by no means disruptive. Like the worldbuilding, the characters are well realized, distinct, and a joy to read. They can feel like echoes of more familiar characters—Kizzy is a clear echo of Kaylee, and Ashby is a more subtle echo of Malcolm Reynolds—but again, this in no way detracts from their distinctness, and mainly serves as a comfortable foothold.

More than the worldbuilding and the characterization, I was drawn in by the prose itself. The author has an enjoyable style that really paints a picture. I'm a fairly sensitive reader, and this book had me all over the place emotionally. Anything that can make me chuckle involuntarily or tear up in the middle of a crowded coffee shop is clearly doing something right.

All that being said, and as good as this book is, I found myself wanting more. There are a few (only a few) missed opportunities or things that were glossed over or skipped that I would have loved to see on the page. Also, I feel that Rosemary, the main character, was not given quite enough room to develop. Her backstory was explained and examined fairly deftly, and she had a clear arc of growth from Solan to spacer over the course of the book, but I felt some of it, again, was glossed over. There were some things not well enough explained to really ground the character, and other things not quite setup enough to make her actions/choices seem completely natural.

Despite these few, very slight flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and highly recommend it.