The Martian

So the first book I read this year was The Martian, a novel by Andy Weir. This is not be confused with the movie starring Matt Damon which was based off the book (although I did make sure to watch it after reading to book to see how Ridley Scott did). One of my goals for the year - I try to have goals not resolutions - was to read at least 12 books this year, and no 2 fictions in a row. Now I got 3 books for Christmas so I figured I'd start with this one.

For those who have neither read the book or seen the movie, don't worry, I won't give any spoilers. I just want to give my honest opinion of the book. My brief synopsis: the story of the fight for survival of astronaut Mark Whatney, who after an unfortunate accident is stranded alone on Mars.

This was a great book to start the year off with, I was hooked from the first sentence of the book. I was finished with it within a week, and would've finished sooner if I didn't have a full time job. That being said, my full time job is an engineer, which helped me enjoy this book. Mr. Weir has a lot of science in this book, and tries to explain as much of what is going on technically as possible. There is a lot of chemistry in there (how one creates water for example) and the author makes sure to provide plenty of comedy from this mostly first person narrative to keep it from reading like an instruction manual. It's refreshing to be made to laugh out loud by someone who is supposed to be facing impossible odds of survival. But be sure, this book illustrates the precarious knife edge between life and death that anybody would face if something were to go wrong in space travel.