The Martian Book Review – Brilliant, astonishing but imperfect

The Martian by Andy Weir is a Sci-Fi fiction first published in 2012. The book was a huge success and later adapted into a movie on the same name The Martian. An astronaut Mark Watney who was left alone on Mars because of an accident, the novel is about his survival on a deserted planet with no contact back to earth. This book review talks about the points which made the book brilliant and the ones which could have made it perfect.

Why did I read this book

I was studying how to write better fiction and watching some videos on that. One of the videos was about the importance of the opening lines of the story in which the example of The Martian By Andy Weir was used, which immediately drew my attention. I read the synopsis of the book and added the book in my to-read list right away. Though, it didn’t spend much time in my to-read list. Soon afterward, I ordered that book from Amazon and got it the next day. My eagerness made me start the book the on same day. The story was so captivating that I read the whole 370 paged book in only one day. You can also check out my other blog about Reading a book in a day – How to accomplish this.

What I liked about The Martian

1. The Research: I was very impressed by the amount of research the author did on chemistry, physics, botany etc. He explained the scientific terms but didn’t dwell into that too much. He wrote it in a way so that the readers without much knowledge of science, can understand the story easily. Technically, the book is sci-fi but it is for everyone.
2. The Humor: I loved the way the author has sprinkled the humor everywhere in the story. It made it much more fun to read.
3. The Plot: The story is very captivating. I found it difficult to keep the book down. But the story kept revolving in my mind whenever I put the book down for a break.
4. The Setting: The settings of the story is pretty compelling because of its unfamiliarity to our normal lives. There were three settings Mars, Space and Earth(NASA).
5. The Suspense & Twists: From a very early stage, readers know how the book is going to end, with the survival of Mark Watney. But even then, the story maintained my interest because of different events of suspense and twists.

What I didn’t like about The Martian

Before I begin on this segment, I must say that I loved the book. It is brilliant. Though I see a few things that could make the story perfect.

1. The book has many characters along with the protagonist. But there are a couple of characters which I found unnecessary. The story would have been the same without those characters. So I think those characters could be removed from the book.
2. [Spoiler alert] The book builds up to the end where we know that Mark has to travel 3200km on mars to the Ares 4 site, with very limited resources. I was expecting some struggle in that section. That part of the book isn’t much eventful. It happened pretty fast and easy without much of twists. I would have loved it more if the book was a little longer and there was more suspense in that section. There was a huge potential in that.

The Martian: Movie vs Book

The book was adapted into a movie on the same name The Martian. The movie was directed by Ridley Scott and released in 2015 starting Matt Damon. I watched it right after finishing the book. I loved watching the movie though I was a little disappointed. The basis for my disappointment was, they peeled out a lot of important plot from the script. Book already missed some parts in the end and the movie tore it further. However, the movie included some scenes which were not originally written in the book, they were nice add-ons. I recommend to read the book and optionally watching the movie later (if you want to enjoy the nice visuals). I strongly don’t recommend watching the movie before reading the book, you will miss a lot of stuff and that will ruin the story of the book if you are planning to read it later.

Conclusion & Recommendation

The Martian is a fabulous story, for everyone who loves to read fiction. And if you are a fan of sci-fi books, you are going to love it. I loved the writing style, the research author did, the humor and the story. I definitely recommend this book to everyone. Though I can’t rate it 5 because of things I didn’t like and missing. Moreover, I am not sure how much impact it would make on my point of view. So I would like to rate it 4.5 stars inclining more towards 4.

My Rating: 4 stars

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