 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book recommended by a bookseller.
The Martian, by Andy Weir. This is "hard" science fiction, where the author set himself a difficult task. The main character is by himself, and in order for the story to make sense, he has to explain a lot of technology and occasionally biology. Weir manages to keep it both understandable and interesting. Much of the book's appeal comes down to the personality of the main character. Mark Watney is an astronaut left stranded after his colleagues mistakenly believe he's dead when they evacuate during a sandstorm. Mark keeps a cheerful, sometimes snarky log of his efforts to create oxygen, water, food, and a means to communicate with earth. He refuses to blame the colleagues who left him behind. Occasionally the book shifts away from Mark's log and shows us the other five astronauts grieving his "death," and the people on earth frantically trying to come up with a way to save him. We get glimpses of the astronauts' personal lives and the bond between all of them. But it's Mark's voice that carries the story. His warm, funny, never-say-die attitude had me rooting for him from the first page to the last.
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