Book Review: The Martian

Author: Andy Weir
Genre: Sci-Fi
Published: 2014, Crown Publishing
Rating: 2.75/5 Stars

When a violent dust storm strikes on Mars, Mark Watney's crew prepares to evacuate the red planet. Mark is injured by debris, and the crew believes him to be dead - so they reluctantly leave without him. However, Mark is still alive and now the only person on an entire planet. He must figure out a way to contact NASA and survive despite seemingly impossible odds.

I did something that I never do: I saw the movie before I finished the book. Not on purpose, technically. I went over to a friend's house to find the movie already playing. I was about 50 pages into the book at that point. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if it was this incident, the massive amount of hype, or just my personal feelings that made this book underwhelming for me.

I had high hopes for this book before I started it and before I ever saw the movie. As most readers know, going into a book with high expectations can be disastrous. I wouldn't say it was disastrous in this case, but I was disappointed.

Mark, while occasionally funny, didn't make me laugh out loud (which many people apparently did frequently). I liked him, but I didn't care about him as much as I should have. I should have been cheering him on, but I found myself liking the chapters that focused on NASA and Mark's crew much more. 

I found it difficult to suspend my belief. Mark faces some insane challenges that he miraculously overcomes. I get easily annoyed when characters nearly die multiple times - it really takes me out of the story. I know the whole point of the book is that its a survival story, but I'm thinking that maybe that's just not my thing. Something that I found unique about The Martian is that it's a type of sci-fi that I haven't read much of. There aren't any creatures or aliens or made-up planets; the science is real (although I've heard that there are issues with the math and science in the book). 

This book wasn't for me. There's a lot of math and science jargon that I skimmed over, and I take skimming as a sign of me not liking what I'm reading. This book is super popular, which is why I wanted to develop my own opinion of it, but unfortunately, I'm not a fan.