Well, wow, this book was amazing. Totally not what I was expecting, somehow, but still totally great. It's a much heavier and dystopian book than I expected based on a few reviews I saw. It's essentially a book about a future where the galaxy is ruled by a capitalist corporation, which sucks into itself entire worlds and treats the people as commodities/acquisitions as much as any natural resources present. So, kind of giving me those Jupiter Ascending vibes, except darker. This is a story about people who are used by the corporation in different ways and it's all pretty horrible, except the part where people manage to eke out a little time and joy for themselves.

This book is also about found family, but a found family, part of which is somewhat reluctant, essentially forced together at first. That was an interesting dynamic and the progression of them getting closer was very well done, I think.

The pacing of this book is interesting. At first, it seems to jump a lot in time and between different POVs, but it doesn't feel disjointed, perhaps because the tone feels consistent and also the pieces start coming together pretty quickly. There was but one thing that kind of left me bothered/confused which I think might be a plot hole:

Vaila's sabotage of the ship. Like, it was pretty obvious that she knew that it was Umbai and not Fumiko who sent them the coordinates for the rendezvous. But how did she know? Did they contact her? How did that pass by Nia and the others? Her motivation is also unclear. Was her loyalties always divided despite how much she loved Fumiko? Why would she sabotage the mission just before finally being reunited with Fumiko? Did Umbai contact her and tell her that Fumiko was dead? Or exiled? But if the latter, why would she not enlist her found family to look for Fumiko?

Lastly, this book is wonderfully queer. Admittedly, the characters go through quite a lot of suffering and some of the characters are very morally grey or outright immoral if you really get down to it, but that's the time of book this is. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, as they say. It's still nice to see (some of) the characters persevere and carve out happiness for themselves any way they can.