BOOK REVIEW: The Martian by Andy Weir

Science fiction? Check. Space drama? Check. Math? Not a clue if it was correct, but it all made sense to me.

The above?! That's what I loved about The Martian by Andy Weir.

Well, shit. Wait a light-second. Mark Watney's character was the main reason I loved the book. I have to hand it to Andy Weir, Watney made me feel that he was an every-man, not just a man who knew everything. Watney makes mistakes, he has to fix them, and he performs experiments! Totally rad, right?!

Yeah, I may be a geek. My gamer tag may actually have the word geek in it, but I digress.

In case you have been living under a boulder, you might not have heard about a movie by the same name, The Martian. I had heard of it, but didn't realize it was based on a book (I have a tendency to loathe movies...it's a long story for another time). After a colleague told me I would like the movie, she told me to read the book first, so we decided to read the book for our book club!

To begin, Mark Watney is a smart ass astronaut, who was left on Mars after a space mission hit some complications and the crew had to vacate. The entire books revolves around getting Mark Watney, the sole inhabitant of Mars, to survive his extended stay on the planet. As you can imagine, hilarity and calamity occur.

WHAT I LIKED: The characters. Watney may be a genius, but he says fuck just as much as I do. To me, that made him relatable, even if my advanced math is fuzzy at times, and I haven't done any chemistry since freshman year of college in a general science course. Moreover, Watney did everything he could to survive, and I'm not sure I could hold it together as well as he does while facing down death every single day. I mean, he was totally alone on a foreign planet without a way to communicate with anyone. How he overcame those barriers impressed me, and allowed me to think deeply about choices I would have made at the same time. Plus, Watney was a botanist, and I learned a lot about botany that I didn't know before, so I enjoyed the education I received along with the book.

However, Watney wasn't the only great character. I really liked Venkat, and how he looked at every angle of a problem before proceeding. Then again, I'm an analyzer and do that before making decisions. Another character I enjoyed was Mindy. Yes, she had a minor role of watching Watney, but there was something about the way she took her minor role with the space agency and grew with it to gain power. She was important to the survival of Watney, damn it, and it goes to show that EVERY contribution to a process is integral in making it successful.

If the characters weren't enough, the constant up and down of each conflict within the overall major conflict of Watney's survival made for an interesting read. Could you imagine having to make sure your math is 100% correct before you decide to burn off elements in the habitat in which you are surviving? Watney's survival took a lot of risks, and you were riding along with him!

WHAT I DISLIKED: Sometimes the book became predictable. For example, I always knew there was going to be a complication with something new. While it makes for great reading to problem solve, sometimes I wanted to skip past the smaller conflicts to get to the next section. For example, Mitch's argument about the Hermes crew being told about Watney's survival. However, I'm an impatient reader sometimes, and that' my problem, most readers will enjoy the conflicts.

RATED:5 Stars

Part of me wishes the author were to write another book--possibly even a prequel, because I really liked Watney's character! Or, what if he delved into the heads of one of the NASA heads, or even Mindy? So many avenues to look at for other books!

Also, this book review is being written in the evening after I had been up late at night for the past week to grade papers/projects before the end of the semester, so there are probably glaring grammar errors. I apologize ahead of time!

NOTE: This review is also posted on Goodreads. Additionally, I bought and paid for the book on my own, and did not receive any compensation for this review.