The Martian

You don't even know how excited I am to be doing this review! The Martian is my favorite movie ever. I literally skipped the homecoming dance freshman year because something compelled me to go see this movie on its opening night. And I don't regret that decision at all. I mean, it's two hours of Matt Damon stuck on Mars and cursing at NASA. What more could you want?
And I procrastinated reading this book for so long. You'd think that I'd be ready to read the ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL for what is arguably my favorite movie of all time the moment I heard about it, but it's been over two years and clearly it's not been enough of a nagging for me to do it. Really, I just recently had this conversation with a friend who also really loves this movie and she told me that she read the book and it's hilarious so I should read it too and I was like "You know, I'm just gonna read it. I don't care if I have school the next day or whatever. I'm just gonna read the book and write a review about it because it's amazing and (more) people deserve to know about it."

The cover:

((Also you know what makes me really happy is that while I was searching for a good resolution cover image for this book, I forgot that the new versions that were published since the movie have Matt Damon's face on them and can someone please buy me that???))

Summary:

On the Ares 3 mission to Mars, a severe sandstorm forces the team to quickly stop their lab operations and leave Mars as soon as possible. While trying to make their way back to the ship, Mark Watney is hit by a piece of debris and the crew leaves Mars, thinking he is dead. The thing is, Mark is very much alive (although impaled by bits of the satellite antenna) and now he's stuck on Mars with limited food and supplies, waiting for someone to come rescue him-- or at least to tell people that he's still alive.

At NASA, which is already dealing with the chaos that comes with a dead astronaut, finding out he is alive is even worse of a blow. Keeping him alive and returning him home will be the challenge that they need to devote all of their energy to. 

My thoughts:

By far my favorite line in this entire book comes from somewhere near the beginning, where Mark realizes that he's going to need to grow his own food at some point because there's going to be a point where he's going to run out of prepackaged food and he can either have a crop as backup or starve to death. He literally just goes "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this" ((I actually went into a fit of laughing at that point))

The main thing about this is that even though it's a life and death matter for Mark, he can't help but make jokes. Like sometimes you forget that he might die if he doesn't turn on the airlock this one time or something and that one mistake can either kill him or set him back so many steps that he might as well die. (The team's medical kit has enough morphine for him to take that it would be lethal, so he does joke a few times about killing himself and calls it his "backup plan".) The team's psychologist says later in the book that it's how he copes with things. It makes him feel better to make other people feel better. 

I think that's why I like him so much... I'm like that too. Like I might be dying on the inside but it'll make my day at least 2% better to know that the joke that I told my friend made their day at least a little bit better. And yup, as his astronaut training got more intense, he just kept more aggressively telling jokes and making people happy.

I've been reading up on what people think his MBTI type should be and honestly, I'd lump him in with me as an INFP. At this point I'm even willing to call him an ENFP. He's just xNFP. I mean this kind of optimism is really common among INFP's ((no I'm not talking about just myself, I'm talking about stuff I've read)) and he's got a lot of the stereotypical personality traits like being so emotionally expressive (he really opens up in the mission logs, but that might just be a man who's well aware that he could die any minute trying to record his life so that the people who might find his recordings have something to go off of), childlike, charming, ultra-sarcastic, and cocky. I'm actually leaning towards calling him ENFP because he seems like he connects with others more (somehow I'm getting more of an extrovert vibe from him but it's probably because everyone agrees that the Hermes feels more depressing without him on board) 

Age Rating: 13+ (Looks like me and Commonsense Media actually agree for once):

I'm just going by my own experience but my mom said that she felt pretty okay bringing me (age 13) to see this movie, and after reading the book, it's not that different (content wise). I'm not going to raise the age because of something like Mark running his mouth every couple of minutes. Like that's funny and it's the kind of humor you get used to by the time you're 13 years old. Literally, the first line of the book is just "I'm pretty f---ed." What an opening. (I DO NOT promote using bad language at any time, but sometimes there is no better way to express how you're feeling and I completely get that)
Also apparently one of the tags for this book on Commonsense Media is "Role Models for Boys" and I was questioning that *just a little*. I mean, yes, Mark Watney is an awesome botanist who's able to work through every problem he gets confronted with and doesn't let the constant threat of death and starvation stop him from trying to get off of Mars, but for some reason I don't see him as "role model" material. He'd probably react with something like "Me? Role model? Pfft, no. Boys (and girls too I guess), go into science, it'll be (absolutely) terrifying and you might just end up almost dead on Mars!"

UPDATE: Their little blurb about the "positive role models" in this book is, "Mark Watney, the protagonist of The Martian, is an easygoing "everyman" who survives a deadly situation by remaining calm, thinking through the problem, and devising solutions that depend on his knowledge of science and engineering." Yeah, alright, I see where you're coming from. I guess me and Commonsense Media do actually agree for once....

((See, I'm not leaving my reviews alone! I'm gonna find the right way to have a balance of everything on this blog. I'll figure it out at some point... But for now, Happy Reading!))