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A review by zephyrareads
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This is my first Andy Weir book and will also likely be my last. This is a book that was clearly written with two goals in mind: write the basis of a screenplay and ||contact alien life||. The idea behind the plot is the most compelling part of this book, but unfortunately the rest of it doesn't hold up. I understand it to be written similarly to The Martian.
The conflict bringing people together is a pretty cool idea and sets up the book nicely. I felt it was well-executed and the conclusion is reasonable if you consider the plot reasonable. The main character will appeal to people looking for a MacGyver-like character who can solve just about any problem on a whim. There's a whole lot of that going on in this book, which may or may not be good thing depending on what you're looking for.Rocky is a character most people will love.
The writing and dialogue style leaves something to be desired. The writing feels childish at times, as though the author is writing at a high school level and never went to writing school. And that's to be expected, because the author is a former software engineer turned author. Most people would write like the author does, so don't expect anything different here. Because the author is a former software engineer, he ends up being very verbose about describing just about anything technical. There are some tired and overly verbose jokes that feel out of place. In the first chapter there's a joke made by Grace about San Franciscans and being vegans. Although the author does make an attempt to make the reader dislike the main character, this one feels like the author making a snide remark more than performing character development. In chapter 17,DuBois and Shapiro verbosely inform Grace they're having sex more than once. This isn't bad per se, but the way it's written feels strangely immature. I don't imagine the author has prior experience writing this and it just ends up feeling awkward to read. Immaturely written bits like that are sprinkled throughout the book.
There are a number of plot holes that compound on themselves, but I'll just point out two that made me scratch my head so my review isn't mostly about them. First, (spoilers up to the end of chapter 21)the primary astronaut DuBois and secondary astronaut Shapiro entered into a relationship. Stratt is described throughout the book as being meticulous, authoritarian, and very convincing. One of the rules Stratt lays down is that primary and secondary astronauts never be in the same place, but seemingly no one cared about these two astronauts being in a relationship together. It doesn't line up, but their deaths were certainly a useful plot device to send Grace on the mission against his will.
The second I'll point out is that (spoilers up to the end of the book)the book concludes with Grace living on Erid for a decade in a relatively healthy state, all things told. In chapter 14 Erid is described as having "a little over double the surface gravity." The long-term effects of increased gravity on humans is not exactly known, but we're pretty certain that our bones would start to break down and our blood circulatory system would, in short, begin to fail. While a happy ending, for an author that tries to get the hard science right and is so verbose about it this would result in Grace's skeleton having collapsed in on itself by then.
If you want to read this for the plot (it's a cool idea!), please do! If you like to read through the thinking behind scientific ideas, then you're in luck, because the ideas it gets across are generally accurate and the author is verbose about thinking through them. Just don't expect too much else out of it.
The conflict bringing people together is a pretty cool idea and sets up the book nicely. I felt it was well-executed and the conclusion is reasonable if you consider the plot reasonable. The main character will appeal to people looking for a MacGyver-like character who can solve just about any problem on a whim. There's a whole lot of that going on in this book, which may or may not be good thing depending on what you're looking for.
The writing and dialogue style leaves something to be desired. The writing feels childish at times, as though the author is writing at a high school level and never went to writing school. And that's to be expected, because the author is a former software engineer turned author. Most people would write like the author does, so don't expect anything different here. Because the author is a former software engineer, he ends up being very verbose about describing just about anything technical. There are some tired and overly verbose jokes that feel out of place. In the first chapter there's a joke made by Grace about San Franciscans and being vegans. Although the author does make an attempt to make the reader dislike the main character, this one feels like the author making a snide remark more than performing character development. In chapter 17,
There are a number of plot holes that compound on themselves, but I'll just point out two that made me scratch my head so my review isn't mostly about them. First, (spoilers up to the end of chapter 21)
The second I'll point out is that (spoilers up to the end of the book)
If you want to read this for the plot (it's a cool idea!), please do! If you like to read through the thinking behind scientific ideas, then you're in luck, because the ideas it gets across are generally accurate and the author is verbose about thinking through them. Just don't expect too much else out of it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Death