I wanna preface this post by saying that, typically, I’m a slow reader. On average, it usually takes me a month to finish my book. And Sci-Fi usually isn’t my cup of tea, so I’ve been sitting on this book for quite a while now. But with the movie coming out this weekend (which I think looks fantastic), I finally decided to give this book a go, and y’all! I am so glad I did, I DEVOURED this book over the course of a week!!!
The book begins with Ryland Grace waking up from a coma. He has no memory of who he is, where he is, and why he is in a spaceship. A few chapters, math equations, and memory dives later, he realizes he’s in a star system nearly 20 light years away from his, and learns he’s the only remaining crew member of a ship that went there to figure out how to save the Earth from the Sun dying. In the process, we also learn why the Sub is dying in the first place.
I truly can’t believe I slept on this book for so long. Andy Weir is brilliant. His writing is easy and digestible, and it helped that not only was Ryland Grace a well written and well rounded character, but was also a middle school science teacher with the ability of “dumbing down” (for lack of a better word) the science for the general audience. Which is me. I am general audience. I had teachers more passionate about history as much as Ryland was about science, so the simpler explanations were much appreciated. I also loved that everything was perfectly paced. Every twist, every reveal. It wasn’t just one or two major reveals, it was one reveal after another throughout the entire book, perfectly placed so as to not throw off the entire pacing.
Dr. Stratt. I hated her character. Don’t get me wrong, she made an excellent supporting character. I respected the hell out of her position and thoroughly understood her actions, but what she did to Rylan was nothing short of evil. I loved her so much during the court hearing, when she essentially told the entire courtroom “fuck you” and left.
Rocky was my favorite to read though. I love his friendship with Rylan so much, how they both were able to reasonably deduce what the other was communicating and building their ability to communicate with each other from the ground up. I was so sad when I thought Rocky died. I’ll admit by that point I had grown fond of him.
All this aside, my only complaint was the ending. As I got closer and closer to the final few chapters, I kept finding it increasingly odd that the pacing still felt frantic, which I don’t mean in a bad way, but it surprised me that it didn’t reach a final conclusion until literally the last chapter. I just don’t understand why that ending, ya know?
by southernfirefly13