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megmahoney1's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Minor: Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
singalana's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Minor: Confinement, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
alisonfaith426's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Excrement, Car accident, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
kate_has_book_thoughts's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Abandonment
Minor: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Excrement, Grief, Cannibalism, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail
heather_harrison's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
“I can't wait till I have grandchildren. “When I was younger, I had to walk to the rim of a crater. Uphill! In an EVA suit! On Mars, ya little shit! Ya hear me? Mars!”
Does it cram in science and maths more than any fiction should enjoyably? Yes, sometimes. Particularly towards the last 10% of the book. But it was still an enjoyable read, with personality and flare and cringeworthy humour.
“Also, I have duct tape. Ordinary duct tape, like you buy at a hardware store. Turns out even NASA can’t improve on duct tape.”
There was some nuance lacking compared to Project Hail Mary, and you can definitely see that Weir has been honing his craft.
“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”
He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61
How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
I will say, there were parts were the narration was a little hard to follow as we jumped between perspectives with the one narrator.
[12:04]JPL: We’ll get botanists in to ask detailed questions and double-check your work. Your life is at stake, so we want to be sure. Also, please watch your language. Everything you type is being broadcast live all over the world.
[12:15]WATNEY: Look! A pair of boobs! -> (.Y.)
P.S.: It made my happier than it should to hear Watney mention wanting to move to Western Australia (due to it being on the opposite side of the world to Idaho and the state's obvious connection to potato farming). I don't care that this is a fictional character, it brings me joy
Graphic: Abandonment
saskiahill's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
Graphic: Abandonment
Moderate: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Colonisation
serotiny11's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
But. There’s no character development to speak of - many of the characters are flattened to a single character trait that becomes their entire personality. The author does not seem to be interested in psychology at all and more into the science problems and survival…which would sure make for a fun space movie, but dragged as a story, for me anyway.
The whole book was a series of life-or-death scenarios that Mark would invariably get out of the very next day through a combination of wild ingenuity and unbelievable good luck. Every single time. Which made the pacing and outcome of each scenario increasingly repetitive and predictable. As this was originally published as blog posts, makes sense, but really reads like an exercise the author was entertaining himself with—what crazy problem can Mark deal with today, and how will he solve it? Each one was interesting individually and would be great as a blog post but as a book, ehh.
Last issue I had was with Mark's entries themselves. There were weird tense issues at the beginning that threw me off, and he would go back and forth between using very technical language, but then explain something really obvious like what CO2 stands for…I was wondering who his log entries were actually intended for? Surely not just NASA, surely not just laypeople…I keep coming back to this book feeling like a fun science-writing experiment for the author that doesn’t entirely work as a novel.
Ok one more…Mark became increasingly unlikeable for me….juvenile jokes became his whole personality (funny at first, but got old), and there was a casual use of some language related to s*xual assault that kicked me right out of the book.
Sigh…definitely fun at times, but not nearly as good as I had expected.
Graphic: Abandonment
Minor: Rape
elijah__'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Abandonment
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Cannibalism, and Injury/Injury detail
oceanwriter's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Left behind on Mars, astronaut Mark Watney keeps a log of his survival efforts. The book follows his attempts to contact his crew so he can be rescued.
I love the plot of this so much. Everything about it. What I didn’t like was the narration style. It's not even the writing style itself as it works perfectly for this situation, rather, the overall voice. I guess I had imagined something more sophisticated sounding. A lot of it was comedic, which is great, I just don’t think I was in the mood for it.
I’ve heard many good things about the audiobook which I also own. I think I will revisit the book sometime that way and see if my opinion changes.
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, and Abandonment
Moderate: Blood, Excrement, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Cannibalism
cyancookie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Graphic: Confinement and Abandonment
Moderate: Blood and Excrement
Minor: Suicidal thoughts