So, this is substantially better than the first novella - to which I gave 1 star and would have been a 'did not finish' had it not been for a book club. There's a proper plot this time, a bit of character development, and some interaction between characters rather than a tedious monologue. It was easy to read and I got through it in a few evenings.

However, the main problem I have with this book is that the author has chosen to go with first person narration, so everything is told from the viewpoint of the main character (hence diaries). This has three potential issues:

1. It is, in my opinion, harder to get right than third person.
2. You don't find out about anything that doesn't involve the main character. (This is what makes diaries of any sort sometimes difficult to read, as you potentially miss big chunks of the story).
3. You have to like the main character.

Wells is a competent author so number 1 is ticked off. Number 2 can be an issue in some stories, but given that the humans in this one just sit around arguably/crying until Murderbot tells them what to do, the fact that you don't hear anything from their perspective isn't a huge loss.

Number 3 however is the killer for me, as I just don't like Murderbot. It reminds me of a more annoying and less funny version of Kryten from Red Dwarf - another android which has broken its programming (yes Murderbot has organic components, but given that it seems to be able to recover from any injury I'm slightly dubious as to how important those are). Like Kryten, Murderbot is still subservient to the person who freed it from its programming, and hasn't worked out its place in the world. The fact that it is completely introverted and doesn't like interacting with people (or other systems) is a bit of a problem when interacting with others is what your main character needs to do to keep the story going. If Murderbot gradually progressed and opened up it wouldn't be too bad, but by the end of book 5 it's still stuck in its shell and refusing to come out.

Oh and Murderbot's continual asides (and asides to asides) at the end of sentences is REALLY ANNOYING.

Overall, if this was the first book in a series I might read the next one, but I really expected more from book 5.