Agree. Very good book overall. But the Lucy stuff is ridiculous. Even reading this when I was a pubescent 15 year old boy I was like, “ok, this is silly and gratuitous.” It was the most “men-writing-as-women” thing I’ve ever seen.

The End of Eternity by Asimov. Very unique take on the structure of time. If you like the setting for the Loki series it is basically the same thing but IMO way better done.

The girlfriend thing was super weird at the time. You could say he goes a bit off the rails when re realizes no one is going to let him off the hook of being a Wallfacer and so just decides to check out of the game on his own terms. Bear in mind the ONLY reason he was chosen was because the >!UN discovered he was the only human the trisolarans were afraid of.!< Other than that, he’s just “some guy” picked seemingly at random and his reaction might not be as far-fetched (if still super cringe) as you might expect.