The end of this felt a little hectic, but overall I liked the story!
Started out as a basic slice-of-life sci-fi story of a translator working for an alien race that turns into a diplomatic conspiratorial murder mystery.
The stuff about truthiness and conspiracies online was prescient.
The story made sense when I read that the author has written for Dr. Who, because even when it was dark or scary at times, it was mostly a very funny, tongue-in-cheek book. ( )

I got halfway through this then skipped to the last chapter. The premise was interesting but the world-building was thin and the story just not interesting enough to hold my attention. Good characterization and the writing is engaging. I also liked the ending, despite my not knowing what happened after page 142. ( )

I love the set up for this story. In a future Earth, an alien race has a tenuous relationship with humans. Lydia is a translator for a cultural attache which involves communicating mind-to-mind and then expressing Fitz's thoughts to humans. But dark forces are at work and Lydia and Fitz have to piece together the clues to uncover, and hopefully stop, whatever is being plotted.

Lydia is sharp and likable. Her relationship with Fitz is younger sister/older brother funny. The world-building is interesting and seamless and the story touches on the role of technology in our lives and its potentially damaging effect on our future. The plot is complicated but works well.

Love the British accent of audiobook narrator Amy Scanlon but she takes on an odd accent for female American characters. ( )

This was so boring, overly complicate for no good reason. Unsatisfying as science fiction or mystery. ( )

Really interesting worldbuilding: aliens have arrived and seem to have mitigated some climate disasters, though there are still lots of refugees and not enough jobs. The aliens can only communicate mind-to-mind, and only through some human minds; translator is a good job but talking to aliens for long enough makes you drunk (minus the impact on non-neurological systems). Our protagonist escaped a dead-end town and is desperate to avoid returning. When her client—the cultural attache—is murdered, things get very strange. I don’t want to spoil anything, and maybe the explanation is a little baroque on the human side, but it was still fun. ( )