52 in 52: Book 2 - "The Martian" by Andy Weir

I read The Martian as book two in my "52 in 52" attempt this past week.  It came highly recommended by a friend whose reading list, other than a bit heavy on anything British, is quite interesting.  She and her husband had finished it recently, the latter remarking "the only bad thing about finishing the book is that now it's over".  To say I went into this novel with high hopes is quite accurate...those hopes, for me, dimmed a tad the further I read.

Was it well written?  Sure.  It grabbed my attention from the first lines: "

I'm pretty much fucked.  That's my considered opinion.  

Fucked.  Six days into what should be the greatest two months

 of my life, and its turned into a nightmare.

See, it sparks your interest, too.  Don't lie.   Did I want to continue reading to find out what happend to this poor guy?  Absolutely.  This novel is a compelling tale about what happens to Mark Watney when he's left, after being one of the first six people to walk on Mars, for dead due to a sand storm and a terrible mishap with his equipment.  It's a story of survival, isolation, and Murphy's Law, because what can go wrong for him, usually does.  I was rooting for him.  I wanted him to figure out a way to stave off starvation.  I wanted him to remain safe despite the myriad of problems he encountered  I was amazed and laughed out loud at his sarcastic outlook and ability to remain calm, all noted in this journal entries.

 That said, the endless technical details of this book began to wear on me after a while.  I've never been a fan of space nor engineering, so I found myself skimming the explicityly laid out details revolving how to grow potatoes or what happens when hydrogen, oxygen...blah, blah, blah.  While it added to the realism of the novel, I found it a bit too much.  Again, space and THAT MUCH science just aren't my thing.

All in all, I am glad I read the book.  It's a fresh take on movies like Castaway , novels like Hatchet, and stories like To Build A Fire.  The fact that it's set on the red planet, a place where survival is pretty much impossible, adds a new twist to a cool genre.  What's fun is it has been made into a movie starring Matt Damon.  This might be one of the few times that I, personally, might like the movie better than the book.