Most science fiction novels act as if people couldn't still believe in a God, or make up some dumb, cult religion. This one did not. It manages to feature Catholics working in science and being missionaries to another intelligent species. This is not the main theme of the book (which Iis great, and I would highly recommend) but that really impressed me.
It felt like reading a child's fantasy or a dream. It didn't quite make sense, but it didn't need to, and honestly felt more magical because of that.
Some of it was narrated by an octopus, and yet it was not fantasy. Actually, it all seemed somehow very real and believable, and told a very relateable story.
It was to weird and eerie, and nightmarish. You could feel the protagonist losing her mind, but I don't know if it started during or before the book even started, or if any of it was real.
