We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
(4) Tree Line
On the sentence level, the book is not that hard: "The door opened. Alice was looking at him, a bit wide-eyed" (16.122). Simple, right? There's a noun, then there's a verb. Sometimes, if you're lucky, there's a direct or indirect object.
Then, sometimes, it gets a little tricky because we read about new nouns, like "the Librareome Project" and "wearables" and "silent messaging." Or "mech" and "Scooch-a-mouti" and "answerboard." Or—well, you get the idea: Vinge describes the future, so there's lots of new stuff. And it can be a little hard to keep up. Now you know how old man Robert Gu feels!
Then, on top of that, it can get a little confusing because there are several interweaving plots… and lots of characters have secrets from each other. So if we see a scene with Robert and Miri but we mostly get it from Robert's POV, then we might never know what devious thought Miri is thinking. And everyone in this novel is thinking devious thoughts pretty much 24/7.