A Closed and Common Orbit

I've been trying hard to not be overly judgmental of the Wayfarers series, because I appreciate what the author is trying to do (i.e., inject a strong dose of kindness and inclusivity into space opera.) This second book fills in the backstory of Pepper, a minor character from the first book (A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet), and provides the continuation of the story of Lovelace/Sidra, the AI from A Long Way. It's sort of standalone - I don't think you'd really need to have read A Long Way to understand this story, although I guess it wouldn't hurt. More importantly, you don't really have to read this book at all, since it doesn't continue the larger story that was set up in A Long Way, and it doens't reintroduce any of that book's main characters. It's basically a spin-off, and like a lot of spin-offs, felt gratuitous and a little adrift. I found Lovelace/Sidra's story line to be too uneventful - and Sidra herself to be too emo - to be engaging. I thought the storyline of Jane/Pepper's backstory was interesting-ish, except that the main points of it were summarized in A Long Way, so it killed any suspense. And I thought the Lovelace/Sidra story was just sort of boring - if you want to read a book about a ship's AI adapting to having a human body, Ancillary Justice does it, and it's a lot more exciting to read. I thought the device of using message board chats as interludes was overdone and sometimes didn't add too much new informaiton. I thought the book shifted between the two characters' storylines too often to sustain momentum, and the final plot point that justiifed why these characters' stories even needed to be told together felt hasty and flat. I'd only recomend this book if, like me, you are a series completionist. Otherwise, there's a lot more out there that covers similar ground in more interesting ways.