Wow, what a fascinating setting! Most of the story here comes from the worldbuilding, so let try and explain as much of it as I can, without giving anything away. Many people call it a utopia, but for some people it seems more like the other thing. There is much discussion on the actual meaning of the world utopia, and those who call it that most vehemently are the ones with a more vested interest in seeing it survive. You know how if you have to tell your citizens they live in a utopia, they probably don't.
Citizens live in Voivodes, numbered parts of the world, and every three years they move on to a new Voivode, in a process known as Rotation. This is so that people don't develop ties to any one place - people are meant to act not in the name of religion, country or rulers. There is, however, somewhat of a cult of personality around the man who first set up the Voivodeship. These terms aren't explained, but presented to you as if you are a citizen of Europia and would know what they mean. It's easy enough to work them out from the context, however. I actually thought this was an interesting idea, and I would love the chance to live in a different part of the world every few years.
The next big point is people settling down much later. Because of advances in medical technology, people can have children later, leading to the creation of the Couples Rule, whereby people aren't supposed to settle down until they're in their late 30's. I would personally love the idea of not settling down until I am much older. However, what I would like shouldn't control what everyone else can do, and if they want to settle down at 20 with their childhood sweetheart, they should be allowed to
There is a strong emphasis on the individual, with people acting for themselves, rather than doing things because of family name, country ties or religion. There is one unified faith, and though old languages have survived, there is mention of a universal European language. To me, this would make the world worse, not better. When people say the world would be better if we all had one language or religion, they usually mean that the world would be better if everyone was just like them.
The one thing I didn't like was the idea of an asteroid field surrounding earth, which is given no explanation. Also no word on how the former UK is doing being united under a system which takes much, such as the flag and the motto, from the former EU?
It's possibly a shame that I didn't care for the characters as much as I did the world. Carys and Max are in such peril from the start of the story that we really should be able to care about them instantly. I clicked with Carys, but Max took me longer to warm up to. Carys is supposed to be an astronaut and an scientist, yet she never displayed much personality that I would associate with these careers. She didn't remain calm under pressure, nor did she seem particularly logical. It was often Max coming up with ways to help them out of the situations they were in. Max is a chef, but we never see him cook - I think Carys cooked more than he did.
So, is this story a sci-fi with some romance elements? A romance with sci-fi thrown in? A bit of both, with too much of the other genre to appeal to fans of either? I really like cross-genre stories like this, so if you like that sort of thing, give this book a go. It does fall on the softer end of hard sci-fi - no The Martian style science-ing the shit out of everything. Still, I think there is enough romance and sci-fi here to appeal to fans of both.
Also, no spoilers, but a warning - the ending does start to drag.
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