The Martian by Andy Weir

“Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?”

My husband and I had a long car ride and decided to listen to “The Martian” while we drove. We had seen the movie, so we were looking forward to seeing how similar it was to the book. I will say, it is surprising at how well they stayed true to the book. There were definitely some differences but it was mainly just times where they expanded on a scene. There were also some changes at the end.

Overall, we really enjoyed the book. It was nice to listen to it after watching the movie. It made it a lot easier to visualize what was going on. It was especially helpful during the moments that they explained chemistry items and other science facts. Andy Weir truly made a very creative story and made it hard to stop listening to it. It definitely made the trip go by back faster which was nice. After finishing the book, we decided we wanted to watch the movie again to compare. Just as we thought, we really enjoyed the movie again and decided that the book and the movie work really well together. If you haven’t read the book or watched the movie, we would highly recommend it!