Think of a time when you were lonely. Maybe your friends all went out for lunch without you. Or you had homework or a project so you couldn’t go to that awesome party that people kept posting pictures of on Instagram. Even just thinking about it makes you feel lonely, doesn’t it? Now, imagine the loneliness you would feel after being abandoned on a different planet. That’s a whole different feeling all together.
Andy Weir’s The Martian is a race against time to survive after astronaut Mark Watney is accidentally abandoned on Mars as his team is aborting their mission during a huge sand storm. With only his botany skills, engineering skills, and a wonderful sense of humour to keep him going, “The Martian” chronicles Watney’s dangerously terrifying and exciting mission to stay alive on Mars until the next team arrives in four years time.
Weir does an amazing job in creating and chronicling Watney’s situation. The story is at the same time funny and devastating, with a new twist at every turn. The writing is captivating and interesting, providing enough science lingo to keep you on your toes, but not enough to turn you off by the confusing language. Weir makes the characters, especially Watney, very human and relatable, giving them appropriate emotions to match the situation and the (in)appropriate language to go with it! It’s most definitely a page-turner and I guarantee it will not let you down (possibly due to the lack of gravity).