This book is very difficult to read a lot of the time, as it gets really depressing and existential, and at least in the beginning (looking at you, "City of Laughter"), it doesn't seem like it could be anything other than depressing and existential. However, something that this book does really well is plant these little seeds of hope throughout to make you think that huh, maybe humanity does actually have a chance of coming together to make it out of the pandemic. Maybe people can come together to fight climate change, and even protect the survival of the human race. Or maybe that's still too much to hope for in real life.
The structure of this book also confirmed for me that I like this weird kind of storytelling style, where each section follows the lives of different characters, but they're all related and interconnected in some way- similar to the style of Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, or There There by Tommy Orange. I just find it very satisfying