I ranted about this book in almost all of my social medias. Picture above is from my book instagram, Reading Hut. Click if you would like to follow 😉 but I warn you, I don't update much because I don't read much nowadays. Sad, I know.

I'm sure most people are familiar with its movie which titled the same. Even if you don't watch it, how could you not notice when every billboards in Klang Valley were printed with Matt Damon's fullscreen face? Okay I might exaggerate a bit there. But if you haven't watch this movie, stop reading right now, go watch it, comeback here and let's fangirling together later. I re-watched the movie few months ago and I searched high and low for this book since then. Well not really because the first thing I did was to check MPH Online. Since I forgot my MPH Online's username and password so I went straight to MPH NU Sentral to get my copy. Now about this book;

ABOUT THE BOOK (Goodreads)

You can click Goodreads link above. If you prefer a synopsis from my point of view, behold! This book is about Mark Watney, an astronaut who stranded on Mars alone after all his crew mates safely evacuated after a massive dust storm. His crew mates thought he was dead because they lost communication with Watney's bio monitor on his suit during the evacuation. Turns out Watney was knocked by the satellite dish and antenna of the satellite dish pierced into him leaving him injured and lost contact with Earth. Even with very low chance to survive, he didn't quit. He overcame each of every obstacles Mars threw at him using his engineering and botany skills.

FUN FACTS

1. About the author - Andy Weir worked on this book for about three years making sure the science was as accurate as possible. He first published this book for free on his blog for fun. Then people asked him to put it in a downloadable form, then to put it on Amazon for Kindle download which he did and charged his reader $0.99. Later did he knew it was one of Amazon's top five science fiction bestsellers and later The New York Times bestseller list. He wasn't a professional scientist nor a professional writer when he wrote the book. He was a software programmer who read rocket science for fun. He studies orbital dynamics as a hobby. He wrote his own computer programs using real Earth and Mars alignment data to determine the best theoretical date for the Ares 3 mission to launch

2. Even though Andy Weir tried to make the facts accurate, there's one glaring exception; the storm that caused everything. Mars atmosphere is too thin to drum such strong winds. For the movie, the producer sent the script to NASA. NASA make a note about that after they reviewed the script. But they cannot come out with alternative scenario. So NASA said, what the hell, it's only a movie. Okay I made up the last sentence but NASA just let that one go.

3. Mark Watney has two Masters degrees. One in botany and one in mechanical engineering. In reality, all astronauts are cross-trained so that they can assist in with any tasks that comes up in a mission.

WHAT I LIKE

1. Mark Watney's will to stay alive. There's this one quote inside the book. I even highlighted that part. "Let's take them one at a time". We could apply this in our life you know. When problems hits us, face them one at a time. There's no way we could settle them all in one go (unless the problems are chained to each other).

2. Mark Watney's sense of humor. I mean he was so funny I giggled sometimes and laughed like a retard sea lion most of the time. He actually fit my dream guy description, exceptionally clever and funny. Here's some quote from the book;

"I started the day with some nothin' tea. Nothin's tea is easy to make. First, get some hot water, then add nothin'"

"Me: This is obviously a clog. How about I take it apart and check the internal tubing?

NASA: (after five hours of deliberation) No. You'll fuck it up and die.

So I took it apart

"You know what? "Kilowatt-hour per sol" is a pain in the ass to say. I'm gonna invent a new scientific unit name. One kilowatt-hour per sol is... it can be anything... um... I suck at this.. I'll call it a "pirate-ninja"."

3. The fact that this book fall in science fiction category but I still can read it thanks to the movie. I never read science fiction book before just because I have bad imagination when it comes to things I never see.

WHAT I DON'T LIKE

1. All the mathematics and technical thingy parts. I hate numbers and I find it hard to imagine most of the technical parts. I know, I have no idea how I become engineer. But no surprise there as to why I'm not an astronaut.

RATING

8/10

Any suggestion on similar books you think I should read?