Starship Troopers

I knew about this book, hard not to. Never seen the movie before, though, I don't watch many. But I guess, it was time to get on this one.

Johnnie is a normal high school student in the future, where space travel is readily available. Though there is one more thing about said future; only people who have served in their version of (space) army have the right to vote. They are the only full rights citizens.
Now our Johnnie doesn't join because he is just so passionate about the whole thing. He does because a friend also does, just like a cute girl from his class.
Then, while he is training... a war with space bugs starts.

When we read books about the future or a utopia/dystopia, the focus is usually someone special. Someone who changes the world, someone who causes big events to happen. A genius, a hero, someone like that. Johnnie is good at what he does, he puts in effort and is a good person, but he is not unique. He is not some magical special person. He is just one who gets caught up in events and does the best he can. It makes the book much more approachable; you can totally understand Johnnie.
It also helps with a lot of the technical details. I'm not someone who is super knowledgeable about science, but hey. The protagonist isn't either. He explains how the in-universe things work in practice, so you understand what's going on, but at the same time, it doesn't go into such details that make it difficult if you are not into science. Which was a great decision; it doesn't date the book too badly.

For a novel that plays out in space, it is not huge when it comes to scale. There are only a few more important characters and they are used sparingly. The story feels much more intimate this way, with interactions only being used without the full relationships between the characters fully portrayed. A lot of it is not even resolved; without spoilers, there are a couple of times when we are told Johnnie wants to/will meet someone again and we never get to see that.
We also often don't see the reactions to deaths, just get told it happened. You could think it makes things less emotional, but overall, this is a book with very little theatrics.

What it has a lot is people thinking about... society, I suppose. How it works, how we make it work. Those parts can be a bit dense, but they are never drawn out and I don't felt preached at. Possibly because as those things were mentioned, Johnnie was also learning and trying to understand them. I'm not even attempting to explain said things in detail, though, just read it. Mr. Heinlein did a better job than I would.

I think this is a good choice for even people who are not that deep in sci-fi and I understand why it's condsidered a classic.