Reviews

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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mstorr9's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

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

4.5

daumari's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful informative 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? Yes

4.75

Lent to me by Janey from book club, but also recommended by a bunch of my friends as well! I really liked this, especially Grace slowly figuring out who he is and his mission over a drip feed of amnesia (where he seemingly still has his skillset but memory is slower to return), as well as making an unexpected pal to help figure out how to save their homes. I REALLY liked all the technical aspects of this, like the effects of pressure, time dilation, xenobiology, etc.

Looking forward to eventually seeing

Ryan Gosling make friends with a giant spider buddy

jamesberrigan's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

rainydayromancereads's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring medium-paced

5.0

kamie85's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

5.0

ectoplasms's review against another edition

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1.0

It's bad bad bad book and the only thing that kept me from throwing it away was Ray Porter's lively narration. But even he didn't prevent me from abandoning the book with an hour left.

At first, I thought the book was quite engaging and intriguing. Then a few hours in I've realise the prose isn't going to get better and there will be absolutely no plot apart from the repetitive cycle of something breaks, Grace fixes it, something goes wrong, Grace sorts it, something breaks, Grace fixes it.

There is absolutely no character development for the narrator, no story to speak of, all other characters are just silly cartoons, and

Spoiler

there's nothing remotely interesting about his alien friend who is just a person with 5 arms.

When the big reveal comes about regarding Grace's sacrifice, I could not care less. The main character was so lifeless, uninteresting, and devoid of personality, motivation, and self-reflection, his story ark (or the lack of thereof) fell completely flat.

The book feels like it's written by a serious hobbyist who likes to imagine what it would be like to use his rudimentary knowledge to survive a space adventure. It's juvenile, dull, and painfully repetitive.

The voice in which the book is written is unbearable. Oh, no, gosh darn it, something has broken again! Let me science in a really awesome super cool way! Oh no, I'm definitely gonna die! Never mind, I scienced super hard and now I'm happy happy happy.

This is the book. I'm really not exaggerating that much.

If I weren't so thoroughly bored by this book to begin with, the biology in this book would finish me off. It is utterly unbelievable, impossible, and plain naive. A few days to engineer some nitrogen resistant bacteria? Sure thing!

Spoiler

An alien bacterium that's 98% identical to human life with mitochondria to boot, but he's having a scientist vehemently attacking him for talking about the panspermia hypothesis?! But this is two scientists sciencing in a super cool way and arguing about science things! Awesome!

On a positive note, I am at least grateful that I was not forced to listen to descriptions of women's bodies and awkward sex scenes that reek of ignorance and sexual inadequacy which is quite common in this genre. Other than that, this book made me think that maybe I should write a book of my own because if this kind of writing is lauded so widely, I can definitely do better.