I'll get right to it: This book is long, boring, and necessary for the amazing story that is the whole trilogy. I had to endure lots of boring bits and parts, but it was worth it for the epic conclusion of the whole thing. This is the first part of the remembrance of earth's past trilogy, and it's easily my least favorite one. However, it's not bad on its own. It's actually very intriguing and has some cool twists and turns. However, when you finish the trilogy, you will just not recall most of it. It's still necessary for the whole story, though. Enjoyable, necessary, but ultimately overly long and boring to some degree.