I really loved Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky, so I was really hopeful for her first YA book. Alas, it was not nearly as good. It started with a really interesting premise: The memories of a famous commander in an intergalatic war who just died are put into a new child, Tina, who is then sent to hide on Earth while she regrows into an adult. She's spent a large chunk of her life waiting to be picked up by her fellow space comrades while dealing with the indignities of high school life. But when she finally is picked up, it's not at all what she expected, including a spaceship on its last legs. The pacing of the book needed some work - it was so fast that I felt we skipped past a lot of really important things. Like, Tina might have been happy to leave Earth, but she did love her Earth mother. And yet she never really thinks about her mother again once she leaves. Tina also isn't the only human to get picked up, and while the book touches lightly on these characters dealing with the possibility they might never see Earth again, it just seems to get REALLY pushed to the side. And while I appreciated some of the world building in the book (especially the ridiculous number of possible greetings that these fighters use), it seemed kinda skin deep and never really went beneath the surface. There was also so much of it that it just became overwhelming and hard to really care about many of the characters (although I did connect at some level with Tina and her best friend).

I also found myself saying "well that's awfully convenient" A LOT. Like, humans taking to a completely foreign environment like a fish to water. Just, kinda hard to believe.

With that said, it does a great job of normalizing LGBTQ+ characters and relationships, offering a number of characters and circumstances that are just a regular part of the world. There's also lots of action, so if you're in the mood for just a romp, this could be a good book for you. And the story telling did get more interesting in the final third, with a very interesting ending that seems to promise a sequel with potential - but only if Charlie Jane Anders works out some issues.