Halfway through this novel, I've go two things to say about it.

First: Becky Chambers is reallly really good at depicting interpersonal relationships, empathy, small communities, people who care about each other. And the fact that this feels so refreshing (and maybe a little naive) is probably not a good thing: if we are not used to see people that care deeply about each other (and about strangers too), maybe the world we live in has a few problems it better face sooner rather than later.

Second: after a successful debut novel, most authors would have taken the safest and easier way: keep the same set of characters and write more of the same. Well, not Becky Chambers. She chose to write an entire different story, with entirely different characters. And yet, the result is a novel at least as good as its predecessor. To me, if you can pull something like this off, it means that you're a fully accomplished writer.

TLDR: read this. Now.