This book was recommended to me by my daughter so I should have known it would be good, but I am notoriously leery of books that are recommended to me!  So it was very gratifying to find that the story grabbed me from the very beginning, pulling me along, until I got to the point where I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to find out how it would end! Very satisfying indeed!

The Martian isn’t an alien, rather the Martian is Mark Watney, an engineer and botanist who is part of a 6 member crew of US astronauts in the Ares Program, sent to explore Mars.  But on day 6 in the midst of a violent storm, Mark Watney suffers a freak accident where he and his EVA suit are impaled and is blown away from the ship. Battling the storm, the remaining crew cannot look for Mark and with only moments to spare take off from the planet and begin the long return trip home to earth.  But Mark is not dead and after regaining consciousness and getting to safety, he must assess his situation and concludes, “I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked”

I don’t know if you remember the TV show MacGyver and I am probably dating myself by even mentioning it, but like MacGyver, Mark Watney must turn all his learning, and abilities into sustaining his life until someone can come back to pick him up in four or so years!  Mark’s resilience and ability to think outside the box are put to the test and even duct tape makes an appearance; “Yes of course duct tape works in a near vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshipped”  But despite the light heartedness, Mark is fully aware that he must have food and water, a stable and warm environment, a way to communicate and he can’t give up if he wants to live, even though his odds of making it are slim to none.

Back on earth, there is a memorial service for Mark and NASA waits for the remaining Ares Program crew to return in order to debrief them on what went wrong. Then a person whose job it is to track the satellites as they travel across Mars, notices that at the HAB site where the Mars crew lived doing their experiments and explorations there is unexplained movement of the Rover vehicles and slowly NASA becomes aware that Mark is not dead and must now deal with how to help him survive until they figure out how to get him back.

This was such an engaging, interesting, well written, well paced, exciting, book! Although mostly light hearted in tone, there was a soulfulness to this book that made you think about humanity and the insatiable curiosity that drives us to explore and go beyond our limits and the type of people it takes to make that kind of exploration a reality.

Brenda’s Rating ***** (5 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book to: Keith, Ken, Sharon and Lauren.

Book Study Worthy: Yes!

Read in ebook format.