As I was reading this, one of my colleagues said it was one of their favourite books and that they re-read it fairly regularly and discovered new things every time -- I can definitely understand how that could be, as I'm not entirely sure I caught everything on this first read. 
 In some ways, this is a book about space politics, with an ambassador seeking to make an alliance with a new world, featuring super cool survival trek. On the other hand, this book is a detailed examination of societal and cultural mores. For such a short book, it seems to talk about everything - gender, religion, prestige, politics, and more that I probably missed. 
 Given I don't think I necessarily "got" it, I enjoyed reading the book and I think it's likely that I will come back to this in the future.