Yuffie's Book Reviews

The Martian - by Andy Weir

After some bad experiences with popular books like Hunger Games, Infernal Devices, The 5th Wave, etc., I promised myself I wouldn't go near bestsellers or mainstream books.

But the movie trailer for The Martian + the announcement of flowing water on Mars just hyped me up so much that I wanted to see what the book was like....

oh. my. god.

Move over Three Musketeers, Yuffie has a new favorite book.

Holy SHOES this book is phenomenal and worth every bit of hype around it.

Ahhhhhhhhslkfjsfldkfjd fj;asfkjdf

Okay I'll do my best to give an analytical review, but warning, this will be filled with extreme fangirling.

The sheer detail to the science and the badass way it's written, Mark's hilariously laid back voice, the entire premise, the way the entire world is backing him up and rooting for him, putting together the smartest minds in the world to help him from millions of miles away... It's just the ultimate story for me personally.

So let's start from the plot: The movie trailer summarizes the whole thing, so no spoilers really. It's a very simple and straightforward, predictable story. Astronaut gets stranded on Mars by himself, has to use his brains to survive.

This is the ULTIMATE man vs. nature story. He's stranded on freaking MARS. BY HIMSELF. With a space suit, a space tent, and some NASA gear, a little food, water, and a machine that makes a breathable atmosphere for him. This guy has a planet out to kill him, and you can't get any bigger than that in a real-world-contemporary (so to speak. It's a few decades in the future, but no aliens, and all the technology Andy Weir assured is scientifically possible in today's age).

But it's the enormous scope of that which really hits home. The entire planet is rooting for Marc to survive. He's just a normal nerd (well, astronaut, which is arguably awesome, but still he's a normal guy like you and me) that has the most brilliant minds on the planet working sleepless nights to bring him home. It brought more than a few tears to my eyes throughout the book. This is such a feel-good, restore faith in humanity story, which is one of the big appeals of it to me.

It's such an optimistic book. Marc isn't a whiny, scared protagonist. He's stuck on mars with every odd against him to survive, and he only once throws a tantrum, for like 2 paragraphs, and then he acknowledges it and apologizes for that as he composes himself. He's just so agreeable to follow. He's HILARIOUS too, by the way. Oh, my god. He's a brilliant genius but talks like a gangster. (If Darren from Stray was a botanist/engineer astronaut, you'd have Mark Watney).

Let me talk about Mark's voice now. He's explaining all the science of what he's doing in extreme detail—he literally is explaining rocket science—but he does so in that laid-back gangster layman's voice of his, so it's so easy to understand. I was never once lost over the science.

Now let's talk about Mark himself. He is a Gary Stu. He has no flaws is smart, funny, persevering, diligent, witty—you name it. and I LOVE HIM. He's one of my favorite characters ever, and yet he's perfect. He has no character arc.

Yes people, let that sink in. Yuffie loves a Gary Stu with no character arc.

Andy Weir broke that rule, but in this story a Gary Stu protagonist works! I have no idea why it works, but it was the reason that kept me reading. Mark is funny and optimistic, while stranded on Mars. Had a typical character been thrown on there, we'd be bogged down with crying, fear, angst... But not with Mark. He made the story simple and easy to move forward. We didn't get weighed down by heavy emotions. It was all the PLOT carrying the story and giving us incredible feels.

Weir allowed the vast scope of the premise provide that gut-punching emotion. And I'm not sure if adding a character arc would've made it an even better read, but what I read was damn good by itself. I loved Mark's optimism and wit, and that let me read the book the entire way through with a smile on my face and on the edge of my seat because this guy is freaking awesome and I want him to survive!

And NO ROMANCE! So great to read a book without any haphazardly thrown in. (that's just a personal pro!)

But the main reason this book needs all the love is the research Weir did to make this book scientifically accurate. It's mindblowing, and that makes my inner science nerd squeal with happiness. I've never read such a science-packed book outside a textbook, but this is 3294710298472304 x more interesting than a textbook because it's the science of NASA AND SPACE AND ASTRONAUTS. WHO DOESN'T WANT TO LEARN ABOUT THAT???

Sorry trying really hard not to fangirl...

It's just incredible that a normal man could write a book like this. He did all his own research with no contact with NASA, and yet he calculated his own planetary orbits and space travel trajectories and did all the math and got all the parts of a space mission and the suits and atmosphere and just EVERYTHING was so well researched. Granted, I know nothing about astrophysics, but I haven't heard anyone disprove Weir's math science yet, so I'm guessing it's pretty solid.

Holly crap you guys. this book. read it.

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, there were a couple issues I had with the book (nothing's perfect, unfortunately).

Weir did a weird pov thing where Mark's stuff was in first person, and then the earth scenes were third person omniscient (or maybe limited? I think omniscient, though I wasn't paying too close attention to that while I was reading). Mark's voice was phenomenal. Clear, strong, witty. But the third person stuff was... Well, there was a lot of cheesy/corny lines, especially in the earlier ones. There wasn't great characterization with the people of NASA. Near the middle and end, once they finally made contact with Mark, everything was so exciting and thrilling that I was jumping up and down and loving every minute of this book. So the issues of the third person scenes did seem to rectify themselves.

One other issue unfortunately is with the ending **ENDING SPOILER. LOOK AWAY IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS*******

It's pretty obvious that Mark's going to get saved and return to earth. The entire book built up the expectation that he'd reach earth and there'd be the biggest celebration in the history of the world. But the book ended when he just got into his friends' spaceship. I mean, we know he's going to get home from there, but... I was just really disappointed we didn't actually see him step foot on earth again after everything he went through.

***END SPOILERS***

But overall, any flaws with the writing or plotting were so minor that I feel bad even mentioning them, because they're not worth mentioning. The rest of the book is so freaking good and such a page-turner that I get a smile on my face whenever I think about the book. I want to reread it already.

So everyone go read The Martian by Andy Weir.

I salute you Mr. Weir. Thank you for writing this extraordinary book.

5/5 stars