Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Der Astronaut by Andy Weir

125 reviews

sarasreading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Wow, two five star reads in a row! I have been putting this book off since it debuted and omg what was I waiting for?! This book gave me so many feelings. I laughed, I cried, I gasped, I was so invested.

My love for Rocky is unending. I would die for that little dude.

I loved it so much I am actually rereading parts of it already, and I rarely reread books. If you've also been putting off reading this one, please bump it up in your list. It's so worth it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Confinement

khaosiren's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Grief

Moderate: War, Vomit, Death, and Suicide

Minor: Blood, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug use, and Child death

svisk09's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Minor: Confinement, Death, and Alcohol

triple_m's review against another edition

adventurous funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Highly recommend the audiobook, the voice actor is incredible and the 🎶 are delightful. Legitimately funny and I think it being in audio added to the humor.

This isn’t a book that I would normally read but I’m glad I gave it a chance. There’s definitely some science-dense sections but the author does a great job about rephrasing and dumbing down the topics so it’s easy to understand. 

a really wholesome story and I still smile when I think about it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, and Death

Minor: Gun violence, Suicide, Excrement, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts

s_green217's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, and Grief

Minor: Drug use, Alcohol, and Confinement

jenropell's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Addiction, Grief, Medical content, Death, and Suicidal thoughts

irenevh's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

My journey with Project Hail Mary started a long time ago. After reading the Martian I was interested in reading more by Andy Weir, but as someone suffering from Claustrophobia the prompt of someone waking up alone in a spaceship set off a lot of alarmbells. A friend of mine however loved the book and at some point decided to lend it to me. So after over at least a year of pushing it off and him telling me how much he loved it, I finally read this book. 

Did I feel claustrophobic while reading this? No. 
Do I like it as much as I loved the Martian? Also, no. 

Still there is a lot of good stuff in this book. Andy Weird has a way of making mundane science stuff seem exciting, which is a great skill for a science fiction writer. 
The premise of the book seems, as usual in his books, not impossible and the reactions and actions seem plausible enough. So the set up and the writing overall is well done. 

Ryland Grace, our main character is easy to like, though at times coming off very close to being a Mark Watney copy/knock off. 
I think where this book fall short for me comes down to 3 points: 
1) I am not entirely on board with the ending. Not a bad one just not what I had hoped
2) There are a few plotholes in this story that had me feeling like the people in this story were dumb
3) There is one decision made by a character that rubbed me the wrong way, and I feel the book doesn't deal with it enough throughout the story. 

Does this ruin the book? No. Because Andy Weird is a good writer, his characters are well written, the premise is interesting and he makes science seem fun and exciting in a way I am sure most high school teachers would be jealous of. But if I ever want to re-read a good sci fi novel I am way more likely to reach for The Martian, than I will be for this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement

pagesforages's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Drug use, and Pandemic/Epidemic

corallydeer's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was absolutely fantastic. I read it in tandem with the audiobook in a book club setting alongside my husband and it was such a great time. As far as the book itself is concerned, I truly adored the whole story and was glued to it the entire time. As a note: I have not read The Martian (yet) and have only seen the movie, so I can't speak to any comparisons between the two books. I did see in previous reviews that some people felt like Grace was pretty much the same character as Mark Watney just rebranded as a

quirky school teacher

, and while I do agree with this point I don't feel like it detracted from the story at all. If anything I felt like blending that personality with someone who's

a teacher

was incredibly fitting and made it extremely relatable as someone who

works in education

.

I loved all of the directions the story took and the details; every time I felt like I had a handle on where the story was going it would throw a slight curveball and I'd be glued to my chair trying to figure out what in the world was going to happen. I adored

Rocky

so so much as a character; my husband and I both loved that

he wasn't a stereotypical humanoid alien

as well and the details describing him were incredibly well done. The relationship between the two characters was hilarious and heartfelt and left my husband and I crying in the car on multiple occasions. I strongly agreed with this one comment on a Tiktok video about the book by someone named Amanda that said:

"

The way Grace went from being forced to sacrifice himself for humanity to voluntarily doing it for Rocky [...]

"

This book truly left such a wonderful impression and is easily getting categorized into the books I wish I could read again with no memory and will easily be a reread-er for me.

As an additional review for the audiobook: I 100% recommend that everyone try out the audiobook either in tandem with the book or on its own. It's easily one of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to and was so masterfully done. The way that they did

Rocky's dialogue

was phenomenal and blew my husband and I's minds. And we were blown away by the level of emotion that the narrator put into Grace's parts. It was truly an amazing part of the whole experience for us!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Grief, Suicide, Confinement, Death, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

Minor: Excrement, Blood, Cancer, Vomit, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Sexism, Cannibalism, Cursing, War, Animal cruelty, and Sexual content

Confinement

(Grace is technically confined on a pretty small spaceship throughout most of the book and is also forcefully confined in a cell in a later part of the book)

| Death

(death is an extremely large part of this book since it's focused on a suicide mission)

| Grief

(Grace experiences detailed grief over the loss of his crewmates and his own impending death)

| Medical Content

(there are various bits of described medical situations including blood draws, the use of the Nannybot, catheters, etc)

| Suicidal Thoughts & Suicide

(one of the primary plot points of the book is that the Hail Mary mission is a suicide mission; the main character regularly thinks about this and it comes up in detail in a number of flashbacks)

| Alcohol

(recreational drinking is described on a few different occasions, including for celebrations)

| Drug Use

(one of the astronauts on the Hail Mary mission requests a recreational drug to use up until committing suicide upon completion of the mission)

| Fire/Fire Injury

(Grace experiences chemical burns from ammonia and fire is depicted in a few situations)

| Gun Violence

(one of the astronauts on the Hail Mary mission requests a gun for his preferred method of suicide upon the completion of the mission)

| Injury/Injury Detail

(there are a number of injuries experienced and sustained throughout the book)

| Kidnapping

(Grace is revealed to have been forced onto the Hail Mary mission and is essentially kidnapped and confined for this)

| Animal Cruelty

(the Nannybot arms on the Hail Mary are revealed later on to have been perfected through animal experimentation)

| Blood

(there are minor depictions of blood through blood draws and at the beginning of the book with the removal of the catheter)

| Cancer

(there are minor references to cancer in relation to radiation and exposure)

| Cannibalism

(it is revealed in the very last chapter that for Grace to survive on Erid the Eridians eventually learned how to clone his muscle cells and produce meat for him so he is essentially experiencing self-cannibalism)

| Cursing

(Grace pretty much never curses due to his habits as a teacher, but other characters curse a bit)

| Excrement

(there is the usual understanding of where drinking water comes from on the Hail Mary ship [recycled and treated urine] and later on there is mention of "poop" related to the waste coming from the Taumoeba cells)

| Murder

(it's revealed later in the book that Stratt forced Grace to go on the Hail Mary mission to which he accuses her of murdering him since he doesn't want to go)

| Panic Attacks/Disorders

(Grace experiences a panic attack when first exposed to zero g's on the Hail Mary)

| Sexism

(Stratt reveals during the Hail Mary astronaut selection process that she specifically put the call out for heterosexual men because she didn't want to deal with potential sexual tension on the mission, this is called out and results in a bit of back-and-forth)

| Sexual Content

(some of the astronauts that volunteered for the Hail Mary mission openly discuss their sexual escapades in relation to enjoying their finals days alive on Earth)

| Vomit

(periodically there are small bits of depicted vomit like when Grace enters zero g for the first time or experiences painfully high g's)

| War

(there is passing speculation throughout the book about the potentials for widespread war on Earth while Grace is in space trying to save the planet, but we never see any of it as the reader)

smothermewithscifi's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Kidnapping

Moderate: Drug use and Suicide