I wanted to enjoy this, but perhaps too smart for an actual story.
I hadn't seen the film, nor did I know this book was written in parallel with the screenplay. I had seen scenes with the computer talking to Dave, so expected that to have more significance in the story - but it's kind of brief.
This story is definitely a space opera, though I didn't realise upon picking it up, and though there's been follow up books this is short enough to assume it's more invested in telling a story rather than what it actually does.
Credit to Clarke for writing or predicting (or collaborating) with NASA and what a lot of experience might be like. But he's definitely invested in describing the new frontier rather than a story arc of a particular character.
The closest thing we have is Dave as a protagonist, and even then I'm not sure there's any real character exploration.
Certainly I can see how this book published in the 60s would have blown people's collective minds, but I'm not sure how well that works some 60 years later (I could make better book choices I guess!).
It was interesting, but more as a mental exercise, and the ending was...not something I could connect with in the slightest. Clarke definitely lost me (enjoyment-wise) at that point.