I think this is a 4.5 rounded up. It wasn’t perfect, but it was really fun and engaging. This is what I’m looking for when I want to read a “light” SF, which is probably a weird description of this book. It’s “light” to me in that it is fast-paced, there are high stakes, and doesn’t get too science-y. But the tone is overall more serious, which I appreciate. Light reads usually lean too hard on humor for me, but this one doesn’t do that.

The pacing here really worked well for me. There were quiet moments and then moments of tension that happened over and over. It kept me turning those pages in a 600 page book.

There’s even a bit of a romance here, but it was handled well, so I wasn’t annoyed by it. There was a moment when one person could have had a cliche moment of feeling betrayed because they don’t realize they haven’t /actually/ been betrayed, but the story didn’t go that direction. The character is smart enough to realize there’s probably more going on. I appreciated that so much. I don’t like artificial romantic conflict.

The weaker parts of the story were:
1) Jules’ plot line. Maybe I’ll change my mind in book two, but I wish that her part had been removed from this book and been its own novella related to this book. It was too separate from everything else.
2) There are definitely some things in here that don’t make sense. Like why would a capable government/military make this decision? Or other things that felt too convenient. But, like I said, I approached this as a light read, so I was just enjoying the ride.