Book Thoughts | The Martian by Andy Weir

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

MY THOUGHTS

I am trying to get into more Sci-fi this year and 'The Martian' was my first choice for that. Having seen the movie and really loving it, I was really hyped for it. And it was a good time for most of the part.

Loved Mark Watney as the protagonist. There was something hopeful and positive about him, that even in the bleakest of the situation we had a ton of hope and cheer inside us as we follows his log entries. 

“Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be “in command” if I were the only remaining person.”What do you know? I’m in command”

“I started the day with some nothin’ tea. Nothin’ tea is easy to make. First, get some hot water, then add nothin’.”

Loved the humor and smart ways Watney tackled all the impossible tasks one by one. On some level, all this made me motivated enough to tackle my issues one by one without thinking about all of them on a whole level and freaking out!

What I did not expect was to like the whole Ares-3 crew and the little tidbits of their personal life. I loved their dynamics and interactions. I also loved reading about the team from Earth which helped Watney throughout the book. 

The reason this was not a 5 star for me was the large amount of scientific terms and info dumping we got in many places. Sometimes there were paragraphs after paragraphs of them. I was overwhelmed, and honestly, a bit bored in few places and had to reread them more than once. It took me a while to adjust with that and I finished this in a whole month. 

By the end, I appreciated a lot of those things and got on-board with the writing. But I still liked the movie more than the book and it's definitely time for a re-watch!

MY RATING - 4/5

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