This book has some brilliant character development, solid atmosphere and a cool premise. But it has a lot of flaws and I feel it holds itself back in many ways.

The biggest example of this is the side plot/backstory that is in between just about every other chapter. This backstory contains no interesting/sympathetic characters, breaks up the pacing and tension, and just feels rather boring to read. I get why the backstory was there, but I honestly just found it took me out of the story a lot.

My second major criticism is that a lot of the plot is driven forward by the characters doing stupid things. I don't want to get into spoilers, but there's so many ways the characters could have avoided dangerous situation easily. This is especially frustrating as otherwise, I quite enjoyed the characters.

I think this books biggest strength is it's character development moments. They felt interesting and impactful, while making you care more about what they are going through. Sadly, there are not a ton of these moments, and instead you get the annoying stuff I mentioned earlier. The entire spooky ship plotline felt way less interesting then the characters personal stories.

Overall, if you can get through the kind of boring backstory sections and dumb character decisions I think it's worth a read. I think conclusion was done well and felt satisfying. Once you get past the backstory sections every other chapter, the book really picks up some steam.