This was, and I'm not exaggerating, the worst book I've ever read and the only thing that gave me the strength to go through this whole train wreck was heavily skimming and posting paragraphs of it on a discord server with someone hating it as much as me. The plot was more or less at the level of the worst Disney movie I can imagine, just extremely childish with just some drama sprinkled in it to make it sound more adult and serious, to the point that at some point I forgot it wasn't a bad Disney movie and I thought "oh the alien must be there to sell toys" before remembering. The characters........ I'm not gonna get there, the quality is too low. Also I would bet real money that the only reason the supreme commander of all humanity's efforts to save the planet (someone that doesn't even understand elementary school biology), was made a female character just to justify one of the most embarrassingly sexist scenes I had the displeasure of reading. At some point she argues for only having STRAIGHT MEN on the mission because a woman would distract them and cause drama. Yes. Clearly the protagonist is a Nice GuyTM so he's against that but you know. The scene is there. Now to the worst part, the writing. I need to personally go to Anne Rice's grave to apologize for all the criticism I had for her writing in the worst books. Miss Rice I'm sorry your worst was a masterpiece compared to this. There are AT LEAST 100 EXCLAMATION POINTS IN THE FIRST 4 CHAPTERS. The only way the writer is able to express that the protagonist is an excitable person during a crisis is by throwing in it more exclamation points than periods. Everything is explained how you would explain things to a 2 year old? Honestly I treat my dumb cat with more respect when talking to him. This is an actual line: "But this is the interstellar equivalent of a stranger offering me candy. I want the candy (information), but I don't know the stranger." Thanks for explaining this oh so complex metaphor! In short, the first book I've read where I genuinely can't see a single redeeming quality, just wasted time

Edit: I FORGOT ANOTHER CRIME OF THIS BOOK, USING MALE PRONOUNS FOR THE FUCKING GENDERLESS ALIEN and as someone with friends that use "it/its" pronounce a huge fuck you to Andy for that scene coming from the bottom of my heart.