So it seems that I may be in the minority here. The 3 stars are rounded up from 2,5 because I didn't hate it - the story was good - but it had so many shortcomings.

First, it's a novella so there's less time and space for developing the story, the relationships, and the themes. This led to too many issues being crammed into a tiny book, which in turn led to telling and not showing because these couldn't be "baked into" the story. We have transphobia, gender identity, mental illness, neurodivergence, capitalism, relationships, racism, migration, personal growth, and it's just too much. The novella didn't do justice to any of these topics. The "exploration" was just a rushed paragraph or two about all of the topics in a row.

The critique of capitalism was executed best and I think it would have been enough to focus on like on or two issues and keeping the others without forcing them to the center of the stage one after the other.

Because the novella is so short, the plot was also rushed and issues came up and were solved fast. Still it sometimes felt like nothing was happening except conversations and explaining the topics mentioned above. I might read a follow-up. Hopefully now that all issues on Earth have been stuffed into the first novella, there might be space for the actual story.

(Also I don't find as much hümör in umlauts as English speakers seem to. They're just letters that many languages, including my own, use regularly.)