Dr. Ryland Grace awakens aboard the Hail Mary with no memory of who he is or what he is doing. The people he with are dead and his only companion is a computer. He comes to realize three things – 1. He’s on a spaceship; 2. He’s millions of miles from home; 3. He’s the only person left with the ability to save the Earth.
I really liked Andy Weir’s first book, The Martian, but was disappointed by his second, Artemis. So I was hoping Project Hail Mary would have some of that Martian energy and it did not disappoint. I thought this book was exciting and funny.
When the book begins, Dr. Grace doesn’t remember anything about himself. As the book goes on and he slowly starts to remember, we get flashbacks to his life on Earth and find out what led him to be on the spaceship. Dr. Grace is sarcastic and competent and so smart that pretty much all of what he said went over my head. There are definitely similarities to Mark Watney, the main character from The Martian, but Dr. Grace is not as crass as Mark Watney was, likely because prior to being on the Hail Mary he was a junior high school science teacher.
I read a review that describes this book as a buddy comedy and I have to agree. The best part of this book was the relationship between Dr. Grace and Rocky. Rocky might be my favorite character and he was definitely the highlight of this book.
One thing that I’ve been thinking a lot about since I finished reading this book is the ending. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ending and I didn’t know if I liked it. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I do like the ending and I think the book ended in the best way. As I read this book on my kindle and I was getting to the 95% mark, I kept thinking the book can’t almost be over because there is so much more that needs to happen. But ultimately I did like the way the book ended.
There is a lot of science and technical stuff in this book and, I’m not going to lie, I did not understand a lot of it. I want to say this book was even more sciency than The Martian. I wanted to give this book 5 stars, but because I skimmed so much of the science and math discussions, I had to give it 4 stars.
If you liked The Martian, I think you will like this book.
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