The two stars are for the intensely interesting setting. Plot-wise, this is another in a long line of "creepily controlling but also pathetically lovestruck sprinkled with just enough damage" love interests and "seemingly bad-ass but ultimately easily self-subjugating" female leads. 
 Characters' personalities do completely story convenient 180s so often I was left wondering if the heroine is the most self absorbed person in the world, or just the most self-deluded. 
 As a rule I don't enjoy explicit sex scenes (implicit is fine for me) but these sunk to a new low with repeated puns and quirky paragraph formatting-which does not make up for cheesiness, no matter how many line breaks one adds. 
 (view spoiler)[ Yes, this is romance, yes it follows a formula. This book, however, tests my limits. The guy hides or lies to her about everything he possibly could (while insisting he doesn't lie), for which she blames herself because he's damaged. His more serious transgressions start with mind rape (fear not, easily forgiven because damaged!), continues by having her censor her own thoughts, lest she hurt his feelings,and by the end he tricks her into a secret psychic marriage, without her knowledge or permission-By the way it would kill him if she tries to break this mind marriage. Her only comment on this is that it would have been nice to be asked first... If I were her I would have ditched that co-dependent loser and fucked the actually nice and heroic blind alien for all I was worth. (hide spoiler)]