Book Review: The Martian

I went into this book, The Martian, quite excited about the idea of the story - an astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars by his teammates. Then, I got a few pages in and thought, "This could be a really boring book if it simply outlines all the things the guy does in order to attempt to stay alive, alone on Mars." Thankfully, the whole book isn't a giant log book detailing his efforts at survival (as it appeared from the outset).

The technical jargon of things did threaten to overwhelm me (I'm not much into figuring out how things work), but I was interested enough to hang in there and ride out the fascinating story. Some have compared it to a MacGyver meets Mysterious Island . It is certainly a tale of an ingenious individual who survives against the odds. Even with so many minds working together to try to get him home, it seemed like there was one obstacle after the next. The obstacles made sense and his tactics to subvert them were effective.

I enjoyed the ride. It was not my normal fare, but I'm certainly glad it was my book club's choice for the month of March. Hopefully, we'll have an interesting discussion about the book. Not sure there's much in the way of theme to hash out, but the logistics of things will be something to contemplate. Now, I'm on the hold list at my library waiting for my turn to watch the movie made from the book.