I really enjoyed aspects of this, but there was too much that was confusing, messy, heavy handed or just plain annoying for me to be able to fully enjoy the story as a whole. I liked the autism rep, but felt the story was often more about the main character being trans and autistic, and discussions around that, than the actual ongoing alien invasion. (I'm both trans and autistic)

There was a section where Denver and Ezra both end up stuck on the road together, and that moment really shined for me. The messy backseat action, pie, sheer horror of thinking they might be stuck on the road forever really worked. Unfortunately after they got off the road was when I started to get pretty confused.

The invasion itself was indeed, confusing. There were whole sections I was re-reading just to work out what was exactly happening, some of the science was vague at best and I was left with mostly thoughts of??? Jellyfish??? I also couldn't even root for the romance, Ezra's moment of jealousy gave me The Ick and I couldn't bring myself to like him after that.