Bewilderment

Pros: very pretty writing style; great to see literature interact well with multiple types of science; the tie-in with Flowers for Algernon is great; captures a sense of enchantment with creation that many scientists feel; made me think a lot about how hard parenting is; identifies some of the best questions to be asked about the anthropocene (what's the right balance of caring about the world's systemic problems vs living your daily life in contentment? How can you be honest about what the species is doing to planet earth and its future without being a nihilist? etc)

Cons: some (but not all) of the political commentary feels out of left field and heavy-handed; small stretches of the story shone, but the broader narrative didn't really come together (actually, I had a similar problem with a few other pretty books written during the pandemic like Sea of Tranquility by Emily Mandel and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr; maybe it's more a product of the era than the author)