From the Bookshelf of Nothing But Reading Challenges…

Artemis

Andy Weir

Start date: February 2, 2018

Finish date: February 28, 2018

Discussion: Books of the Month

Why we're reading this: February Adult Fiction Fantasy/Sci-Fi Book of the Month
[close] February Adult Fiction Fantasy/Sci-Fi Book of the Month

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 167 topics — 23,695 comments total

Books of the Month

* Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez - Nov 25 Theme BOM - South America (starts 16 Nov)
By Moderators of… , Challenger-in-Chief · 21 posts · 74 views

last updated Nov 08, 2025 01:33PM

* A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett - Nov 25 Adult / Non-Fiction BOM (starts 2 Nov)
By Moderators of… , Challenger-in-Chief · 89 posts · 91 views

last updated 49 minutes ago

showing 10 of 107 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Aug 05, 2018 Vickie rated it really liked it

Shelves: keeper-shelf, booksthatmakemegowow, author-alphabet-reading-challenge-2

It is confirmed that I will happily read anything Andy Weir chooses to write. I luh-huvved THE MARTIAN and cautiously looked forward to ARTEMIS. I know sometimes the debut novel will shine and the follow up will be less sparkly. No worries, ARTEMIS is sparkly as heck!
I loved that the main character, Jazz, is less than stellar in her life choices. Simple needs, she wants to be rich enough so she can have a place of her own and her own bathroom. She is tired of her bunk cell and sharing the commu ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 05, 2018 Amy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is more like a 3.5 star book for me, but I bumped it up to 4 stars because I love hard sci-fi, and it was hard sci-fi.

There were a lot of things I loved about the books:

1) Good world-building. I knew how the colony on the moon worked.
2) The main character wasn't a Mary Sue. She was intelligent, but not the best fighter, and her overestimation of her own intelligence got her (and the entire colony) into a lot of trouble.
3) The other characters weren't dumbed down to make the main character l This is more like a 3.5 star book for me, but I bumped it up to 4 stars because I love hard sci-fi, and it was hard sci-fi.

There were a lot of things I loved about the books:

1) Good world-building. I knew how the colony on the moon worked.
2) The main character wasn't a Mary Sue. She was intelligent, but not the best fighter, and her overestimation of her own intelligence got her (and the entire colony) into a lot of trouble.
3) The other characters weren't dumbed down to make the main character look good. The engineering flaws were believable.
4) Tons of nerdy sciencey space stuff.
5) The security guy was competent, which is way more realistic than what normally happens in novels. Also, more interesting.

What I didn't like
1) The main character. I liked that she was flawed, but for her upbringing, elements of her personality didn't make sense. Why was she so smart and so unmotivated? Why was she so intensely focused on being rich, other than paying back someone? None of that was addressed. Also, she was not written well for a female character-- even a tomboy most likely wouldn't say some of the things she did.
2) Wasted characters. Bob and Rudy were interesting characters, which felt like would be more integral to the story, or had additional stuff to add, but those threads were dropped towards the end of the book.
3) Main character got off easy. Way, way too easy. She didn't have enough leverage at the end. Which goes back to number 1-- I didn't like her very much. She was selfish and irresponsible and treated her friends horribly. Though she eventually asked for help, I never got the sense she learned her lesson about trying to solve everything herself.
4) The romance was painfully shoved in. The book would've been better off without it. It was forced and unnatural. It was also completely unnecessary to the plot.

I loved the Martian. I didn't need this book to be the Martian. I'm fine with comedic first-person narratives. But the MC didn't evolve enough to make it worth it. She also skated by on consequences. Other characters were left undeveloped or underdeveloped.

But the science was cool! ...more

1 like · Like · see review