The Martian in Reading with Style

Jan 03, 2015 Juniper rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-books, first-books, scifi-fantasy

so.... i am pretty sure that if i were ever to be stranded on mars alone, i would be screwed. totally and completely. i mean, i like to think i am a handy, resourceful person. i like to think i am smart person. but... mars. (of course, it should be noted that the idea of me ever being on mars is, you know, ridiculous. the list of people ahead of me for that particular journey is about 7 billion people long.)

anyway... this book was a bit of reading fun. i didn't particularly take to mark watley's ...more

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Feb 27, 2015 Alicia Gordon rated it really liked it

Shelves: made-me-laugh, fantastic-adventure, sci-fi, aaron-buddy-reads

Wow. So, this book is basically a post-catastrophe survival story. Watney is the ideal protagonist; very well fleshed-out, intelligent, positive, wonderfully sarcastic. I laughed numerous times. You can tell that the author is extremely intelligent and although I didn't completely follow along with the mechanical portions (which were very detailed and could seem a bit heavy) I certainly did not lose interest. This entire book had me holding my breath in hopes that Watney would make it through. I ...more

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Dec 02, 2014 Teddie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, sci-fi, made-me-lol

The second time around, and I still have fun reading this book. I read a very entertaining Q & A session earlier this year, between astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and author Andy Weir. In it, Tyson asks:

NT: Could you have invented a new genre here?

AW: I’ve heard people describe it as competence porn.

And that is exactly right :) ...more

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Dec 28, 2014 Krista rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi, highly-recomnd-read, adventure, large-print, 2014-2015-winter-challenge, 2015-books-read, cari-2015

Wowie, wowie – what a wild ride this book is! The action starts on the first page, and doesn’t let up until the last one. Sci-fi is not a genre I normally read, but I really enjoyed this book. I’ve heard this described as a mashup of the movies, Apollo 13, and Castaway. I agree with that assessment.

Mark Watney is part of the crew sent on a mission to Mars. On the sixth day on Mars, he has an accident, and his crewmates leave him for dead and start their return journey to earth. Mark wakes up to ...more

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Aug 22, 2015 Laurie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, own

I liked this book, and it might have gotten 4 stars if I hadn't listened to Ready Player One right before it. They are similar books: an outsider on a quest, and told in the first person. The Martian's Mark Watney was not quite as compelling to me as Ready Player One's Wade Watts, and I also found the pacing a bit slower.

I am a relatively new audiobook listener, and I think that these two were the first audiobooks I had listened to with a first-person narrative. I found I really connected with ...more

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