Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

18 reviews

bjjzoe's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful tense fast-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

4.5


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

violerwolf's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book wildly oscillates between being 2 stars and 4 stars for me, so I averaged out the rating. People really love this book, and I understand why. Andy Weir has really mastered using tension and keeping you constantly guessing, wanting to find out the next piece of the astrophage puzzle. The science is written in an understandable way. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the humor and dialogue that Weir writes is.. painful. I hardly could get through the first 5 or so chapters of this book with its Marvel movie-esque “Well, that just happened” quips. The book excels at tense action, and I do love the relationship between Grace and
Rocky
, but I wouldn’t  reccomend this if you’re looking for complex or interesting characters.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

corallydeer's review against another edition

Go to review page

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!

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lunar_witch's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-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


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

bomenvernietiger's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

I respect the general goal of making approachable but accurate science media, but when I set aside that appreciation for a moment and hold this book to the standard of anything else I read, it simply doesn't hold up.

There's a really interesting and well thought out plot, but it's massively dampened by the many little mistakes and plot-holes, prose that sounds like it came from a drunk text message, an overly light-hearted and casual tone that doesn't fit the story, a boring main character, events that are often way too plot-convenient, annoying humour, cheesy dialogue, and Andy Weir's stubborn unwillingness to explain or do research into anything that doesn't adhere to his highly specific personal interests. This last flaw is clear from his refusal to get into any substantial world politics even though a third of his book is supposed to be about international cooperation, and his _extremely_ half-assed attempt to conceptualise a pitch&harmony-based alien language, which contained mistakes which could only be possible if Weir did not consult a single semi-professional musician or musicologist before publishing. 

This could have been an amazing hard scifi that teaches people about physics and astronomy, but it's written in such a way that the science never really matters; whenever there's a plot issue Weir's science can't solve, it's either glossed over or splattered with plot convenience sauce (aka 'xenonite'). It could have also been a nice, silly, emotionally deep, feel-good soft scifi, but the characters and the prose are way too dull for that, and anything heartfelt about the book is drowned in constant scientific explanations. Both of these ideas would have been great stories, but they were smashed together and the result is a mess.

This is extra sad considering Andy Weir can write something as good as The Martian. But looking back, the Martian already contained the cracks in Weir's storytelling which became full-on rifts

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

crunchylettuce's review against another edition

Go to review page

lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

1.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative 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? It's complicated

4.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

gbyronwilliams's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring fast-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

Listening to the narration by Ray Porter is incredible. They add so much to the text with this amazing acting ability. I don't think I would have teared up at the ending or been so invested if I was reading this book on the page! 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

joyfulfoodie's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny hopeful mysterious tense fast-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

5.0

I laughed out loud multiple times during this book. Like The Martian, the science is great, the characters likable, and the flow strong. Fast paced, engaging, simply delightful. There are lots of lines I wanted to read out loud to my husband (or quote to you here) but they are so much better enjoyed in the context so I restrained myself. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

iono's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-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? Yes

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings