andrewhatesham's reviews
364 reviews

The Martian by Andy Weir: Too much science, not enough fiction.

While it's cool that the scientific elements are pretty accurate to real life, most of the other elements lacked a lot for me. As a predominantly fiction-reader and a person who doesn't know much about science, this book was a bit difficult to connect with and enjoy. I have read other sci-fi books that I liked a lot, but they didn't have a heavy focus on scientific accuracy.

I wouldn't say the technical jargon made the book hard to read, because I found that I didn't need to completely understand the science to follow the plot, but for me, the plot lacked the level of emotion and character development that I hoped for. I also wished there was a bit more of a philosophical element because the plot had plenty of potential for that sort of thing.

Instead of philosophy and character introspection, much of the plot and main character hinges on humor. Unfortunately, the style of humor did not click with me at all. It was a bit of a turn-off. I didn't find the main character very likeable either. To be frank, I found myself not caring about whether or not he survives. I think his survival is the whole point of the book, so that was a big problem for me.

On the bright side, this was mostly fast-paced, so I was able to get through it quickly regardless of how I felt about the plot and characters! I'm not a fan of slow paced books so this is a huge plus for me. 

Overall, I'd say this was not for me, but I can see why people like it. I would recommend it to people who are very interested in science and space and people who like dry/sarcastic humor.

I'll probably come back to this but right now I just can't handle the writing style 

I wish I could unread the last story in this

This wasn't much like what I expected so I was a bit disappointed, and I also felt like the pacing and plot structure could have been better, but other than those things, this book is alright.

Don't go into this thinking it's gonna be scary or very plot driven, it's more of a reflective character driven story.

As much as I dislike boiling down a book as to being "boring," that's pretty much the only explanation I have for why I didn't finish this.

It had me through the first few chapters, but then it progressively got less and less interesting. The pace slowed down when I expected it to speed up, and while I wouldn't necessarily say the plot is predictable, I'll say that for me, almost nothing felt surprising. In other words: I got bored.

Lastly, this is not the fault of the book, but I was expecting this to be more of a horror story than a fantasy. This was dark, but not scary at all.

The art is really cool though!