The Martian

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him & forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded & completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—& 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—& 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?


FINALLY! Something to rave about! I was right to take a break from sequels, I think.

Honestly, I started talking up this book to people before I even finished reading it. It's one of those books that you don't really know what the outcome is going to be, but almost no matter what happens, so much good story has gone into the work that there are several outcomes that would be acceptable. As long as they don't pull the Alice in Wonderland ending ("it turned out to all be a dream!"), it'll be good. And it was. It really was a good ending.

Very much of this book is written from the perspective of Mark in a personal log type format. Although it reads like a well written blog, I still liked it. I am pretty sure that if someone were actually working for NASA, formatting and formality would be pretty important, so realistically, it wouldn't have been written the way that it was in this book. However, I still approve as a character development device. The reader finds out in short order the type of person Mark is, you get a feel for his voice and character through his logs. I can see how some people would interpret it as juvenile, inexperienced, or perhaps even poor writing, but I really feel it enhanced Mark's character. It may have been a device, but it definitely worked for me.

I also think that style of writing got me very socially and emotionally invested extremely quickly. I think probably within the first 30 pages I was really feeling for this guy, and not long after I was grinning like an idiot and wanted to cheer when things went well for him, and I felt my heart sink when things didn't go his way. I think this is one of the reasons I loved this book so much. I was SO invested. I was "in" to it so quick. Such a great feeling. Also it made me read it far quicker than I should have (who really needs sleep?)

Before starting this book, I was aware that the movie was coming out next month, and I made a point of not watching the trailer. All I knew about it was that Matt Damon was going to be Mark, and I only knew that because of the poster. Midway through reading (and loving) the book I decided I wanted to make sure that pictures of the characters in my brain were lining up with who was cast in the movie. It's one of those little things that can really just kill a movie for me, so a little preparation can go a long way in saving the movie for myself. It was impressive how close the casting was to who was in my brain. For example, Commander Lewis in my brain was Joan Allen, but Jessica Chastain is cast. Now, to me, it seems that Chastain is just a younger Allen, so that was pretty much perfect. For the NASA Public relations director, Annie Montose, I had (not me! You'd think sharing the same first name would make me picture myself, I think often this is true, but not this time, I'm not nearly that awesome) the woman that played Fig in Orange is the New Black (her name is Alysia Reiner, had to imdb it), but Kristin Wiig is cast and she will be amazing. She is younger and hotter and just fantastic in general. Those were the two characters that I pictured the clearest, other than Damon as Mark, and I was definitely happy with those casting choices, and I am pretty happy about the rest as well. If the movie is as good as the casting, I am going to LOVE this movie. (side note: I loved this book so much and I am so looking forward to the movie that I will probably do a review of it on here as well. So, stay tuned for that if you like this book review)

I finished this book a few of days ago and it's weird... it feels like I had been on Mars for a week and now I miss it. And there's no way to go back. If Weir tries to make a sequel I will be pissed. It doesn't need one, and shouldn't have one. (plus, I am a bit bias considering the sequels I have read lately). The best he could do would be a tangent character or plot or something and that just wouldn't be as good. But this book is worth a read. It's technically Science Fiction, because no one has walked on Mars yet, so this is future, but not super far in the future future. So it's attainable Science Fiction if that makes sense. I feel like I could recommend this book for everyone. It's just a great story. If you read it, let me know, so we can talk about it. If you see the movie... well... we can talk about that too, but you should really read the book ;)