I started and gave up on this book twice before finally hunkering down and finishing it this time—and I’m really glad I did! 

The first 50 pages or so feel unbearably juvenile to me—what was once charming and fun in The Martian just turned super lame for me, the humor did not work at all in my opinion. But once the story really got going, that got easier to ignore, and I really liked where the story went. There were a couple surprises that I really didn’t expect, and although it was science-heavy, it never felt bogged down in the science, and the plot just kept chugging along and kept me interested. I liked it, but I’ll never really love a hard-science sci-fi book like this.