When I heard Mr. Smith, the math teacher across the hall from me, say he wanted to incorporate this novel into his classroom somehow, I was very excited! I always love to hear non-ELA teachers encouraging reading. When he described the book to me, I thought I would give it a read.
I have always been interested in space travel, and this book entertained my imagination. This story is about Mark Watney, a man who was on a mission to Mars. Something goes wrong during the mission, and he is stranded, alone, on a distant planet.There is a lot of science and math in the book which I thought would throw me off, but it awakened a part of my brain I haven't used in a while; it's nice reading literature that does this! I also appreciated Weir's character development, especially of the main character. There were one liners that made me laugh out loud, and Watney's personality is very clear to the reader. While I did feel, at times, his sense of humor seemed a bit much for his situation, Weir did a good job of describing the necessity of this aspect of his persona, and it makes sense how important it was for his survival.
All in all, this was a very entertaining read, and I think anyone remotely interested in outer space should read it, although there is some strong language that could be offensive to some. There is a movie coming out soon based on the book, but as always, I suggest reading the book instead; they are always better.
