An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

first off, it was hard to keep the author's life separate from the plot - Hank is the real life brother to the famous John Green, and rightfully an internet sensation (VlogBrothers, VidCon) on his own. so this meditation on fame and being 'viral' and turning a person into & maintaining a 'brand' (stuff in the novel) are all real things he has had to live thru and think about. the rest of the plot - an alien life coming to Earth and maybe going to destroy us all... well that stuff was just not as interesting to me.
the details that were most glaring were the 'woke' details added to the characters without being integral to who they were: April's bisexual label, her black girlfriend, her gay assistant, the female US president - lots of lip service to an audience that might take offense that another straight, white male dares to write a book (why should we care what a cis white man has to say?) absolutely NONE of those details mattered, so why even add those adjectives? heck - show me, don't tell me. or better yet, write the story that describes people with no mention of gender or sexuality - just the content of their character. call them Pat or Terry or an ethnic name that doesn't come with assumptions.