MY RATING: ★★★★☆
It’s been a long time since I read a book about hard science and gosh it was good haha! I wish Mark was my science teacher because his explanations would be soo funny. In case you haven’t heard about this book before, it’s about Mark’s journey stuck on Mars and how his botany and engineer skills help him to survive.
Mark is quite a character, his humour and optimism are everything. If not for his personality, I would die of boredom from this book and all the physics notion in here. The secondary characters are also very engaging and charming, from the astrophysicist to the team leader, we get a glimpse into everyone’s lives and point of views.
I love books that push the boundaries of a simple plot but got you actually think about your life, or teach you new things. This one is filled with life lessons!
Here a few :
- Botany is important, know how to garden. Being alone in another planet makes you realize how important it is to know how to produce food, how to plant POTATOES.
- Chemistry is the key . “There isn’t a lot of water here on Mars. … If I want water, I’ll have to make it from scratch. Fortunately, I know the recipe: Take hydrogen. Add oxygen. Burn. And don’t kill yourself in the process.”
- Moving Forward. Plans fail.We make mistakes but the secret is to let yourself live it, freak out for a moment then move on. You can’t know how everything will turn out, focus on your next step and you will get there.
- We all need each other. As much as Mark can survive on his own, he still needs to establish contact with his team.The whole novel is centered in how the whole planet is united to save one man on Mars, leaving behind their political conflicts.
This is one of the rare time where the movie and the book are equally good. What makes it a good movie adaptation is they added a few extra elements to bring life to the characters in an unique way but still keep the essence of the book. Of course, there were a lot of events missing in the movie (Mark didn’t have it easy at all in the book, he had to go through storms, explosions, etc.) but it seems like it was very easy for him in the movie hahah. I understand they had to cut some scenes and make it a 2 hours movie so it’s forgivable. Overall, the movie was well executed, loved everyone’s performance especially Childish Gambino *smirk* he was exactly how I would picture the astrophysicist hahah.
Here’s the trailer for those of who haven’t seen it yet :
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