The Martian by Andy Weir

Hi there, guys!
As promised I'm back with a new review!


BASICS
Title: The Martian
Author: Andy Weir
Release Date: February 11th 2014
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0553418025
Number of Pages: 387
Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure


MY OPINION

“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?” He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61 How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.”


Okay, if this book was supposed to get a prize, it would be "didn't-expect-that".
I started reading "The Martian" during my vacation in Spain but Mark Watney's humor felt so weird and off-putting, that I had to put it down after roughly 30 pages.
I love sassy and witty main characters, I really do, but not in live-or-die situations.
Mark Watney was one of the first people to get to Mars but during a extremely dangerous sand storm, his crew had to retreat.
Unfortunately for him, Matt was impaled by an antenna and believed dead by his crew mates.
But guess what: he survived. And is now the sole inhabitant of Mars.
His only hope is to survive until the Ares 4 crew arrives in about four years.

Well, you get it. Shit's going down for him and he cracks joke after joke. It felt unnatural, I just couldn't picture anybody react like Watney did.

But I picked in up again a few days ago and, boy, did I love this book.
I came to love Watney's unswerving optimism and humor and laughed out loud several times.
Especially, when the NASA officials down on earth groaned about him. I felt like a proud mother. He's my baby.
What really helped making me love this book were the multiple perspectives. Before reading "The Martian" I was afraid that we would only ever follow the events from Watney's perspective, which would have made keeping the reader interested a balancing act for the writer. 

I came to love many of Weir's characters, just to name a few (apart from Watney, of course): Mitch (my sassy love down at the NASA office) and literally the whole HERMES crew. Every character had her or his own personality and they didn't feel over-the-top as Watney did at the beginning.
I can't wait to watch the movie! The trailer looks so good! And Sebastian Stan is in it!

"The Martian" definitely got me interested in science and believe me, there's a lot of science talk in it.
I'm looking for some good articles about former astronauts and the Apollo Missions, if you now any, please leave a comment! I would be really thankful.

Favourite Quotes:

“Maybe I’ll post a consumer review. “Brought product to surface of Mars. It stopped working. 0/10.”

“As with most of life's problems, this one can be solved by a box of pure radiation.”

“They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially ‘colonised’ it. So technically, I colonised Mars.
In your face, Neil Armstrong!”

RATING

4.5 out of 5 stars!