Well written and cohesive plot, and a loveable main character (Klara), but I personally prefer a denser plot. The writing style is very subtle. There's a lot subtextually (no spoilers here), but not many events actually happen. It's much more of a reflective, slow paced story.

I put off reading this for a long time because I thought it was gonna be heavier on the sci-fi (I hadn't read much sci-fi at all until recently), but it ended up being the opposite of that. If you're a sci-fi newbie, you don't need to feel daunted by this, because things are put into simple terms and there aren't that many sci-fi elements anyway, most of it feels like a real life setting. Conversely, if you're a literary newbie, this may not be for you. 

It's also a bit less emotional than I expected. But I'm sure some people would view it as much more emotional than I did, it's subjective. It just didn't hit a nerve that way for me. 

In terms of this as the audiobook version, I think listening to it was a good choice since it's slow paced. I could just increase the speed when it felt a little too slow (I typically read faster paced books, just my preference). I liked the narrator for the most part. The only thing that was slightly grating, were the parts with the British accented characters because the accents did not sound realistic.