Andy Weir's The Martian

The Martian by Andy Weir is an action-packed, very (very) technical novel about what goes wrong when humans try to tamper with the angry red planet. Mark Watney, the main character, finds himself on Mars after being caught in a sand storm and being left for dead. He uses his botany skills and wry sense of humor to get himself through hundreds of days in the harsh Martian atmosphere. An interesting aspect of this novel is the fact that there are very few main characters--I would argue that the astronauts at NASA tend to all blend together; the only other notable characters are Watney's comrades who are sailing around in space while their shipmate is facing certain death on Mars.

While Watney's biggest problem is day-to-day survival, he quickly sets his sights on getting off the planet that holds him hostage. With a few twists and a LOT of highly-technical jargon regarding hydrogen production and NASA equipment, Mark’s journey through the solar system has no shortage of stressful moments. Suffice it to say the ending of the book is no different than the first--exciting, a little confusing, and a bit surprising. I’ll let you find out the rest. …show more content…
I say this because I often had to stop reading to look up pictures of the equipment Weir was describing or to research the chemical processes being described. Since I had to stop so many times the story felt a bit choppy at times. All in all, however, the book was a fun jaunt through the life of a doomed astronaut with a killer sense of humor. I went into my reading of The Martian with the hopes of learning a bit about life on Mars, as well as giving myself an excuse to go see Matt Damon on the big screen after. While I wish Weir was a bit less jargon-heavy, I was able to figure out most of the science being