Take a photo of a barcode or cover
seraphjewel 's review for:
The Martian
by Andy Weir
Okay, so confession time: I did not hear about this book until the movie came out. I'm sure I saw it on the shelf before but didn't give it much thought. I haven't seen the movie, either, but it got a lot of buzz so I decided to go ahead and check this out.
At first I thought this was going to be a survival novel in a similar vein to Island of the Blue Dolphins, Robinson Crusoe and so forth. I admit I wasn't even sure what was going on at first when the book switched perspectives and then quickly became disappointed once i realized it wasn't all going to be first POV. Once I got used to it, the way the story was told felt so much like a screenplay asking to be written. I felt like I was reading Apollo 13 except it focused so much more on the science than the people.
Focusing on the science can be good if it's done right. Jules Verne did this in From the Earth to the Moon, and I feel like the author was channeling that when doing all the science for this book. And while I like reading the science, it doesn't make sense for Mark to be explaining all of it out while doing his logs. One assumes the logs are for scientifically-minded people so why does he have to go into so much detail? And if you are going to do first person, show a bit more of his mental state changing the longer he's there alone. I get why he uses humor and sarcasm but he doesn't really break down much or for very long.
I guess it's just me loving psychology and getting into people's minds, but I feel like so much was unfulfilled in this book. While I did like it, I still left the book feeling unsatisfied.
At first I thought this was going to be a survival novel in a similar vein to Island of the Blue Dolphins, Robinson Crusoe and so forth. I admit I wasn't even sure what was going on at first when the book switched perspectives and then quickly became disappointed once i realized it wasn't all going to be first POV. Once I got used to it, the way the story was told felt so much like a screenplay asking to be written. I felt like I was reading Apollo 13 except it focused so much more on the science than the people.
Focusing on the science can be good if it's done right. Jules Verne did this in From the Earth to the Moon, and I feel like the author was channeling that when doing all the science for this book. And while I like reading the science, it doesn't make sense for Mark to be explaining all of it out while doing his logs. One assumes the logs are for scientifically-minded people so why does he have to go into so much detail? And if you are going to do first person, show a bit more of his mental state changing the longer he's there alone. I get why he uses humor and sarcasm but he doesn't really break down much or for very long.
I guess it's just me loving psychology and getting into people's minds, but I feel like so much was unfulfilled in this book. While I did like it, I still left the book feeling unsatisfied.