Arrival is a pretty good book with an outstanding performance by Jeff Hays. It has a ton of funny and witty jokes that I enjoyed and continued listening to the book giggle late into the night. The summary of the book is a bit misleading, though it does explain exactly what happens in the book. We have a bunch of characters and follow their journey through the book from different perspectives and experiences with generation-specific jokes of course.
Does the book take itself seriously with all the jokes and references in it? On a scale of 0 (batman) to 10 (the prince has no pants), it’s around a 3. An absurd situation is followed by a life or death experience with a smooth enough transition that you have enough time to switch the gears. I had a few breathtaking and clutch moments in between the jokes, so it’s somewhere close to Dungeon Crawler Carl in that sense. A minor critique is that the pacing of events for some of the characters is too fast, haptic, or inconsistent, and a few times I found myself waiting for the POV to change to a different family member.
In the end I really enjoy the book overall and looking forward to the next one in series!