3.5. By far my favorite thing about this book were the aliens (ahem, native inhabitants). The description of their appearance, their language, their habits and culture were so well-imagined. I also enjoyed how much Peter, the missionary entrusted to them, recognized his limitations with them. For example, he couldn't be sure whether their shoulders moving up and down was actually laughter or how they would interpret the bible stories he preached to them with things like fish that were totally foreign to them. This made for lots of clever insights and touching interactions. The USIC compound where the humans live was equally well-imagined but the characters that populated it felt much more cardboard to me. In particular, I disliked Grainger, the type-A female fronting as a tough guy but who actually craved affection and connection. Somebody sign her up for the next Bond movie! 
 I also tired of the back and forth written communication between Peter and his wife Bea, even though I understood the centrality that their 'lost in translation' exchanges had to the novel's themes. Nothing he wrote to her went much deeper than what he had experienced (so it felt like reading the same thing twice) and nothing she wrote to him much surprised me. 'Things are bad, getting worse, you don't understand what it's like, blah, blah'. I wring my hands because the subject matter here was so meaty I wished Peter could have been more intelligent...maybe Marilynne Robinson could have sent the preacher from Gilead up there? Here's a quote that kept coming back to me as I read and, I think, sums up some of my disillusion: 
 Most true things are kind of corny...we make them sophisticated out of sheer embarrassment. Simple truths with complicated clothes on. The only purpose of linguistic dressing up is so people won't look at the contents of our naked hearts and minds and say, 'How naff.' 
 Well, I rather disagree. I enjoy sophisticated writing and deep insights into faith and religion. These illuminate the simple truths for me by bringing me around to them in unexpected ways. This was a very suspenseful, interesting good read just not what I imagined.