The juvenile romance despite the characters being 35+ really soured this book. At least it was trans man/cis woman romance, I would’ve legit b*med an orphanage if I was forced to sit through a cishet romantic relationship. Bleh

Speaking on the trans representation it was done well very subtly. But I feel the subtlety was also a detriment to the point a lot of (mainly cis) reviewers/readers didn’t catch it and are erasing Tarquin’s trans identity, which sucks because his bisexuality gets about the same focus but most reviewers/reviewers have no problem catching he’s bi but completely gloss over him being trans??? Lmao if I speak. I get as a cis author O’Keefe didn’t want to get down in the weeds with trans issues as that’s not really her place. And she wasn’t a coward and actually included   the trans aspect of body-hopping tech that so much science fiction shies away from. But I feel there could’ve been a better balance between so subtle it’s missed by people who aren’t looking and full on trans centric storyline

The cool scifi and body horror was excellently done. 

Another issue is Tarquin was just so passive? Naive? He’s 35 yet acts like a 25 year old. It would’ve been more interesting if he was more duplicitous/sinister have him be a full on MERIT sociopath then slowly deprogram  

All in all not bad but certain character writing and relationships dragged this book down. It’s just not hitting the way her previous space opera trilogy hit. 
Hopefully the sequels will be better.