** spoiler alert ** 
 A very sweet, endearing book about an alien's perspective on the human condition. The writing alone, which was funny and insightful, I would give 4 stars; my lower rating comes from the narrative inconsistencies that constantly pulled me out of this mostly delightful story. This is what happens when a liberal arts major attempts to convey the thoughts of a hyper-rational, mathematical protagonist in a believable way. So he can interpolate all of human language from 100 words, but "googling" and "marriage" weren't included? Why? He doubted human knowledge of the geometrical circle - even though some of the very first things he saw, like electricity, combustion and tall buildings, should have clued him onto our mathematical level? He comes from this incredibly advanced civilization whose leaders can control his and others' minds, but those same leaders balk at controlling him to kill the people they want him to? He read a complete history of earth before arriving, but didn't realize he had to wear clothes - even when he saw literally everyone else wearing them, as well as a hundred other things he ought to have known by virtue of reading our history? I definitely laughed at all the shenanigans our hero got into, but I had to work really hard to suspend my disbelief all the same. 
 I also quite disliked the numbered list of platitudes at the end; it felt like lazy writing, and 80% of the list was written so tritely - like a self-help book wrap-up - I cringed. But, I loved the premise and all the main characters, and found the conclusion more or less satisfying if a little strange: could Isobel really ever get over the fact that this guy LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE, BUT ISN'T her DEAD husband of TWENTY YEARS? I think it would have made more sense if he was able to remain in their lives just as a friend and, like, uncle-figure to Gulliver. That was the main failure of this book. Sense.